An Experiment and a Simple Stool

For a while now, I've been studying the technique that Peter Galbert teaches in a YouTube video about getting straight-grained parts from kiln dried wood.  I thought I'd try the technique on a foot-long chunk of 2x8.  I can't find any pictures I took of this, but I did make stool legs from the sticks I got from the 2x8 and you can hopefully see what I was doing.

You can see the curvature on the left-most leg

I had split the 2x8 down the middle and could see the natural curve of the wood relative to the straight-ish edge of the board.

Sketchup drawing of a 12" section of 2x8, showing how the grain ran out when split

Then I split each half similarly to get four pieces.

Second and third splits added

From here, you have to look at the grain of one of the split edges.  In the drawing below I've removed the right-most split and rotated the board to reveal the edge grain.

Edge grain of one of the splits

This gave me enough information to shave the pieces to leave just long grain fibers.  And because the grain was not straight, the resulting parts were not straight.  This gave me an idea to use the strength of these curved pieces to make a small, but strong stool.

Ground-level view shows curved legs

The sightline angles for the legs are all 45°.  I didn't measure the resultant - I just eyeballed what looked right and used that angle for each leg.  When installed, the bottom of each leg is still slightly flared out (not vertical).  The legs have 15/16" round tenons, fit into holes of that size in the top, and the tenons were wedged during glue-up.

The top started out 12 1/2" x 12 1/2", 1" thick.  I used a large compass to draw a 12 1/2" radius arc near each edge, the center of the circle being at the midpoint of the opposite edge/end.  This was just playing around with shapes, but I liked the result.

Shows the future shape of the top

And here's a top view.  I put on three coats of shellac and it's looking really nice.

Birds-eye view of the completed stool

I hope someday to try Galbert's technique on pieces of oak long enough for chair parts.  If I ever get to a lumber store, maybe that day won't be too far off.