Chevron Pattern Bar Stool | with Plans

There are some really cool things you can do with plywood like creating visual patterns. Today I'm going to show you how I made this bar stool with a chevron patterned seat, as well as how I built the base with outward leaning legs. Let's jump right into it. To create the chevron pattern, I'm using 3 quarter inch plywood that I'll rip into a bunch of strips and glue up on edge. To get a nice clean look, it's key to use premium plywood like Baltic Birch or a sanded plywood like this GS1 I got from Home Depot. I ripped the plywood down into multiple strips 1.5 inches wide. If you're interested in getting the details on all the dimensions, I have plans available for this build. You'll find a link to the plans down in the video's description below. I used a large speed square to align the boards and drew a line at 45 degrees, and this is just to have a reference line for glue up. I did the glue up working by small sections. You'll want to have a lot of glue on hand, as there are more mating surfaces than there is surface area to this blank. The one thing to keep in mind here is to make the blank no wider than your planer can handle. I threw on some clamps and let it dry overnight. Once it was dry, I used a chisel to clean off as much dried glue as possible, as all this dried glue can be really hard on the planer knives. I could then run the blank through the planer, taking extremely shallow passes since running plywood and grain through a planer is really hard on it. I flipped the board over and slightly lowered the blades as I went, until it was smooth on both sides. To create the chevron pattern, I need to cut this blank up into strips at a 45 degree angle. I used a large square again to make a reference line for the cut. Having a track saw on hand to make this cut is really ideal, but you could also use a circular saw with a guide rail. I'm personally so happy to have added this tool to my shop, and if you're looking to invest in a track saw, be sure to check the link in the description below. This is one of the most affordable ones on the market, and it really gets the job done. With that first edge cut, I could now go back to the table saw and rip the blank into strips on a 45 degree angle. Take it slow here and make sure to keep all the pieces in order, otherwise your pattern will get messed up later. With all the strips cut, I could flip over every other piece in order to create that chevron pattern. I ended up with 7 pieces, but I'll only need 6, so I'll just get rid of this one. Time for another quick glue up, this one much quicker than the previous one. You'll want to make sure to use a good amount of glue here, as the end grain tends to really want to soak it up. After letting it dry overnight and scraping off the excess glue, I could run the blank through the planer again on both sides, once again taking really shallow passes to avoid bogging down the planer. I repeated this until smooth on both sides, and I had reached my final desired thickness. The next step is to cut out a circle, but first I need to find the center of the blank. I can just use the cut line in the middle and measure in the other direction. I'm drilling a small pilot hole, but not to worry, this will be on the bottom of the stool. To cut the circle, I'm going to use my homemade circle cutting jig. I already have it all set up here, but if you want to learn more about it, you can check out my Lazy Susan video that's linked up in the top right corner here. To cut the circle, I used an up-spiral bit, using shallow passes in a clockwise direction. After each revolution, I lowered the bit ever so slightly and went around again, and repeated this several times. Every once in a while, it helps to clear out the excess sawdust with a shop vac. After multiple revolutions, I finally made my way all the way through, and a circle was born. Now, using a router can leave some burn marks on the outer edge, so before going any further, I spent some time sanding the contour in a continuous motion to avoid flattening any of the edges. Despite using premium plywood, I noticed some voids within the plies, so I'm just going to use a little glue and some sawdust to fill those in, and then hit it with the sander. Next, I used my trim router with a roundover bit to round over all the edges. To avoid leaving burn marks, especially with plywood, it's best to do this in multiple shallow passes, lowering the bit slightly on every pass until you're happy with the look. Then of course comes the obligatory sanding, making sure to hit all the edges as well as the top, starting with 80 grit and making my way up to 220 grit. You can get plywood and grain really smooth if you take your time and do this right. Before applying finish, I'm using denatured alcohol to clean the surface and remove all the leftover sawdust. It also gives me a nice preview of the final result. As a finish, I'm using Osmo Polyx oil, and this is a hard wax oil mix. I really love the rich and smooth look it provides, and it's becoming one of my go-to finishes for a lot of projects. While that dries, I'll get started on the stool base. I'm going to use a single 2x4 for the legs and the rungs. I'm cutting the 2x4 into three sections. Two of these will be used for the legs, and I'll start by trimming off one edge on both boards to square up the edge, then rip them into strips just over 1.25 inches wide, yielding four legs. To get them perfectly square, I'm setting my planer stop to 1.25 inch and running the boards through one side at a time until the final thickness is reached and all the legs are perfectly square. So this is a prototype I made and I want to show you so you'll get an idea of where I'm going with this. As you can see, the legs are sloped outwards on all four sides, which I learned is referred to as raked and splayed legs. To achieve this style, all the parts will need to be cut using compound angles, one way for the legs and a different way for the rungs, and I'll show you how in the next few steps. I'll start by the four legs. The bottom and top of the legs need to have a parallel compound angle. I started by beveling my miter saw by 5 degrees using a digital gauge to dial it in just right. Next, I swung the blade to the right by 5 degrees as well. With these settings locked in, I trimmed off one end of all four legs. As you can see, I've labeled all the legs to avoid any mistakes and so I can show you how to easily achieve a parallel compound angle on both ends. Initially, the A is on the top and the B is on the front. When you flip the board to trim the other end, you should see the A on the front and the B on the top. I set a stop block to ensure consistency and then cut all the legs to length. I still have one piece of 2x4 left over and this will be for the rungs. I'll first start by planing it down to 1 1⁄4 inches to match the thickness of the legs. The compound angle on the rungs is a little different than the legs. First, I'll tilt my blade by 5 degrees and rip some strips 1 1⁄4 inches wide before heading back to the miter saw. Just make sure to keep the angles parallel to each other to end up with two parallelograms when all is said and done. I decided to run the boards through the planer, keeping the same 1 1⁄4 inch shedding before heading back to the miter saw. For the rungs, I swung the blade back to 0 without touching the 5 degree bevel I had previously set. Next, I trimmed off one end of the board. I labeled the top of the board with an X, this time aiming to always keep the X on top even when I flip around the board. This will give a trappy shape to the rungs which is what we need. Then I just rotated the board 180 degrees and cut again until I had all my rungs cut to size. As you can see here with this side view, all the rungs lean to the left and from the front you can see that trapeze shape with both sides leaning inwards at the top. Alright, with all the pieces cut, I can start working on assembling the base. So grabbing two legs, I simply rotate one of them 90 degrees to mirror the angles and position a top and bottom rung. You want to double check things here to make sure all the angles are on the same plane. I'll assemble one side at a time into an A-frame. To figure out where the rung will go, I kind of played around with it until the angles seemed to line up just right and then used a combination square with that measurement to make sure both sides were at the same height. I'm going to use dowels to assemble the base and it's easy to get mixed up here so I'm labeling all the adjoining parts. I'll then draw a line across all the joints perpendicular to the joint. I'm sure I'm going to get negative comments for this, but I'm going to use a single dowel for each joint. Ideally you should use two to prevent the joint from twisting, but given the limited space I have, I'm hoping the angles will help lock the rungs into alignment. Here I'm using my doweling jig to make all the holes where I marked them. If you want more details on all the tools I used for this build, be sure to check out the links in the description below. It's finally time for glue up and I'm using a generous amount of glue in all the holes as well as on the end grain to use up all the gluing surfaces that I can. I have plans available on my website with all the dimensions and cutting diagrams if you're building this for yourself. You'll find a link down below or just head over to diymontreal.com for details. I'll let both of these set up and then come back to finish assembly once it's dry. Here I'm just taking a quick pass to break the edges and round over the outside of each leg. I then sanded everything smooth and applied a few coats of gray spray paint to the base. An easy way to center a square base within a circle seat is to measure the square and use half that measurement to mark on all four sides from the center of the circle. I placed a piece of tape on those markings and used them as a guide to position the base. When I was happy with it I used some clamps to lock it in place and drilled some countersunk pilot holes and then attached the base with four screws. Hey, I hope you liked this video and if you did please give it a thumbs up and if you're not already subscribed to the channel I'd love to have you so be sure to hit that subscribe button and tap the bell. Until next time, thanks for watching, see you soon.