This four-piece dovetailed step stool is a weekend class I sometimes teach – but unlike for most of my classes, it’s not a project I, er, borrowed from Chris or wrote about myself for a magazine article or book. It’s an excellent beginner’s dovetailing project, and you end up with a nice little stool that’s perfect to help a kid reach the sink or a cat reach a window. So I give it to you here.
I usually make these in cherry. It’s a good-looking wood – especially with a soft wax finish and a few years on it. But most important to me, it grows near where I live, and it’s easy to get in wide widths for a decent price. We usually buy from C.R. Muterspaw Lumber, where 5/4 wide cherry is currently listed at $5.85 per board foot. One step stool takes about 3 board feet (bf). I do my best to get 12″-wide (or slightly wider) boards, because that makes the prep easy – though you can slightly adjust the thickness, width and length as needed to fit your available stock. And you can use just about any wood – but if these are your first dovetails, I’d go with something that has a decent “mash factor,” which is to say you can get away with forcing too-tight joints together. Sometimes. (Pine, poplar, basswood/linden are great choices, and cherry and walnut are good, too, if a little less forgiving).
First, surface the stock by hand or machine, then crosscut the parts to size. I typically start with 5/4 stock and plane it until it’s flat – whether that’s 1″ or 7/8″ – and call it done. Then I rip a ~2″ piece off one edge, and cut the parts to length.
For a stool that will get a clear finish, I sometimes get a little more persnickety with the prep so as to end up with a continuous grain pattern on the legs and top. Before ripping, I’ll crosscut the overall board to 32-1/4″, square on both ends, then rip ~2″ from an edge. I cut one leg off each end, and the remaining middle becomes the top. Cut the stretcher from the 2″-wide piece to perfectly match the length of the top.
Put marriage marks on the top and sides, ideally with the heart sides of the boards facing out, so your nice, tight dovetails will counteract any cupping.
The tails go on the legs; I like five per side, so I end up with a chunky look (to my eye, that seems right for a step stool). If you don’t know how to lay out dovetails, see this video for my preferred method.
Cut the tails, then lay out the curve at the bottom of each leg. Or lay out the curves, then cut the tails. You can also wait until the joints are fully cut on the legs and top to lay out the curve. Doesn’t matter. But I like to lay out that curve before laying out and cutting the sockets on the back of the legs for the stretcher. The closer that stretcher is to the floor, the more stable the finished stool. But I don’t like for the stretcher to be below the cutout – there’s too much chance of splitting off a foot as you chop out the waste. Plus, it would look weird. I typically align the stretcher’s lower edge with the top of the curve, which puts the dovetail’s socket at each end about 1/4″ above the top of the arc.
I like the feet to be about 1-1/2″ wide, so I measure in from each edge and mark that for each foot. Mark a centerline on both legs. Butt together the bottom ends, aligned to each other side to side. Then place the stabby end of the compass about 1-1/4″ to 1-1/2″ up the centerline of one leg, and set the tool to hit your 1-1/2″ mark as you swing the arc. If you don’t like the curve, move the stabby end up or down the centerline as you like, reset the compass, then try again. Make yourself happy. But you don’t want to remove too much material from the legs; that will weaken them. And look weird.
If you haven’t already, smooth plane the top and legs. The pin board has to be planed before you transfer the tails…but on this project, the top and legs are both pin boards, because the stretcher gets a tail at each end; the sockets get cut in the back edge of the legs. Go ahead and cut a tail on both stretcher ends.
Measure from the top of the legs to lay out the location for the stretcher – or do a full dry-fit on the top and legs, and you can simply set the stretcher across the back, lining up the baseline on the stretcher to the legs. Transfer the tails, mark the socket baseline on the legs, then cut the sockets. The only semi-tricky thing is to not tear out at the baseline, which is easy to do when cutting it with the grain as you must here. So scribe that socket baseline as deep as you can with your marking gauge; deepen it with a knife if needed. And use a sharp chisel and tiny bites as you remove the waste.
Now remove the waste on the bottom of the legs with a coping saw or band saw, and fair the curves with rasps and sandpaper, or a spindle sander if you have one. (You could instead of a curve lay out and cut a bootjack – a V-shape that’s easy to cut with a saw and a lot easier to clean up than curves.)
Put glue in the sockets on the top. (I use liquid hide glue for this project – it has a little more open time than PVA, but not as much as fish glue. You don’t need a lot of open time for four pieces, but I prefer to not use the plastic glue.) Fully assemble the legs and top, knocking the joints home. Put glue in the stretcher sockets on the back of the legs and knock the stretcher in place. Use clamps as needed to pull things together.
After the piece comes out the clamps (I prefer to leave things clamped overnight, no matter the glue), it’s time for “make pretty.” Then apply your finish of choice, put felt pads on the bottom of the feet to protect the floor, and you’re done.
p.s. If you need instruction on cutting through-dovetails, there’s lots of info online…but there’s also an exhaustive dovetails chapter in my book “Dutch Tool Chests” … and every book sold contributes to treats for my spoiled cats (they deserve it).
