Shopsmith Forums

I took a little job so shorten two bar stools 3". I wondering how you clever people would do that. I thought I'd lay them horizontally on a bench. Mark the cuts from the bottom. Clamp a track saw to two of the legs and cut the with my circular saw, flip it over and do the other two legs. But I'm sure there must be a way to employee the SS....And I'm sure you will have other ideas.

Thanks for looking.

I would be inclined to use a back saw or 'pull' saw. i.e. no electricity!

Very careful laying out cut lines suggested.



However if results are 'uneven' (chair rocks) the disk sander could help even them up. That cleans up the ends also.

JPG wrote:However if results are 'uneven' (chair rocks) the disk sander could help even them up. That cleans up the ends also.

I wood suggest that ya stand the chair up on a level surface, put masking tape on each end of the legs. Then take a thin scrap of wood to place at each end of the leg. Draw a line to sand to.

I'd use my oscillating saw. cut the legs like I would a door casing.

Secure the chair. Use a block as a guide nearly the height I wanted (leave a little space for fine tune sanding/trimming just in case the originals had some wobble)) set the blade on the block as a guide and cut 80 to 90 percent on each leg. As long as you keep the blade parallel to the block (and presuming the top of the block is parallel to the work surface) you should have a nice even trim. To finish I'd turn the chair upside down and using the original kerf as a guide, finish all four cuts. Probably use a nice fine tooth blade for a smooth surface.

Sorry it has no SS products, but I try to go for the tool I have that makes it he easiest.

Be well,
Ben

First mark and cut the 3" off of each leg. Type of saw doesn't matter.

Now to level the stools. I like this method!- using a zero clearance insert with your table saw. -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ScTjOX8CLI

Check out this Charles Neil method of evening stool/chair legs...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oiunzAJgdjw

The Steve Shanesy method using the table saw worked very well for me today. Only took 15 minutes to set up the 510 and do the sawing/leveling.

Just barely fit front to back, but worked!

After reviewing the suggestions here and on couple of other sites I decided to use this method. I saw this on a YouTube video.

The stools each have 4 legs and she wanted 3" taken off. I've never attempted a project like this before. So I searched around on the internet and found a link to someone who had a idea that I could copy and I thought it would do the job.

I cut a couple of pieces of scrap pw to 3" by 7" making sure the edges were square. I put them against the legs to be trimmed and by trial and error cut shims so the sides of my jig would be square to the stool legs. When I was happy with the fit I attached them with DST. Then I clamped the jig to a chair leg and used the top surface of the pw as a guild and trimmed the 3" off by hand with a pull saw. Then I clamped a piece of scrap to the cut leg and moved the jig to leg number 2. The front and back legs were different so I needed different shims. Before cutting I used painters tape to cut down and splintering when the saw exited the cut.

This process worked really well. Thanks for looking.

Nifty system, Berry! Congratulations on a job well done! The first time doing anything in the shop is always a challenge. You met that challenge in spades!