Stool Progress

I'm building two small stools. Wood is hickory and walnut. I've been using stool #1 to test methods before working on stool #2. I finished assembly on stool #1 on Sunday. It's all hickory with a band of darker hickory in the center of the top. The shelf is dadoed into the sides and secured with pocket screws.

The top is screwed into the sides and the screw holes are plugged with homemade plugs. I don't own a drill press so I use a piece of scrap with a hole sized to the outside of the plug cutter to guide the cutter. (I'll post a picture in the next couple of days so this is clearer.) I didn't have/couldn't find enough light colored scrap to make the four plugs for the top of this stool, so I decided to use darker wood and make the plugs a design feature. I cut a bunch of plugs, for both stools, and pulled out four that looked like they offered good contrast.

It wasn't until Monday night when I trimmed the plugs flush that I discovered that I'd used one lighter plug on the stool. The picture to the left shows the offending plug - just to the right of the darker band. Needless to say I drilled out this plug and replaced it. (Sure hope the new one has better contrast.

I haven't gotten back to stool number 2 yet, maybe tomorrow.

Paddle Hook

I got to spend a lot of time in my workshop last weekend. First up on the to-do list was finishing the new paddle hooks for my kayak rack. Since I built the rack a year and a half ago I've been using metal hooks that uses gravity and the weight what's hanging on it to grip the wood. The problem is that every time I took the paddle off one of the two hooks fell off.

The new hooks are 3/4" plywood. I sized them by tracing the metal hooks. They were cut on the scrollsaw, rounded over on the router and screwed to the rack.

Now the hooks won't fall off every time I head out for a paddle.