Shopsmith Forums

I don't know if anyone wants to see this or not LOL, but this is one of the most satisfying projects for me so far. It is a Ben Franklin chair/step stool from a plan found on Popular Mechanics:

http://www.popularmechanics.com/home/ho ... 6/4226197/

I made some mods to the design and it is definately an Algales Law project (see his sig), but it works great, fills a need I had, and was a challenge (for me).

Not a Charlese type project, but for me pretty thrilling......
Stained Fir. No glue, all screw construction. The plans say to plug or not plug the countersink screw heads. I didn't plug. Dados on the steps for strength.

Anyway, tell me what you think good or bad .....

I think it's terrific and I'm glad you posted it! And I don't think it falls into the category described in my signature!

Definitely a project still on my "to do" list. Very happy to see your excellent workmanship on this Franklin chair.

Very nice work!!

Thanks for showing it to us.

Definitely a challenge with the angles. Looks great!!!

You are too hard on yourself.

That is not a trivial project(I looked at the 'plans').

Free handing profiles from 'squares' is an art IMHO.(especially with the plan being free handed as well).

Tried standing on it yet?

Interesting brick wall!


Oh! That explains the angled hinge tenon need.

That's really neat, Dick.

Beautiful job, Dick!!!

I may have heard of such a chair long ago, but I'd certainly forgotten. Great work, and great job rendering a classic useful object of art!

Chris

Thanks guys! It was fun, a lot of tongue chewing and drool LOL, but I got her done with some "adjustments"

JPG, the brick is the main buildiing. I built a 30x40 brick buildiing in 1990 to house my flegling IT business (wasn't call IT yet) and my shop is housed in the half (30x20) that originally was retail space. Islands displays, the whole bit. I then partitioned that space into dispatch, server farm/tech support, business, and records. That all came down this year (finally!) and I have moved all of the SS's into it. It is not too big, but houses 5 SS's perfectly. So far so good.

Yes, I have "stepped" on it. I have used it extensively over the last couple of days rearranging some upper shelves and building some other high storage space (I have a plethora of small stuff you know ) Yes, this was the difficult mortising angles I was asking about. I wound up doing the mortising by hand .... Algale's law again ...

Algale, that is because the camera is far away LOL. It's your law. Actually it looks pretty good, a few blemishes, but all in all ..

Charlese, thanks. I look forward to seeing how it is supposed to be done. Hope you do it soon ...

Thanks Gene and John. Chris, it is amazing how well it works. I didn't need another chair, but I wanted the challenge.

Very cool, Dick! I've gotta start spending more time in the shop, or you're gonna leave me in the (saw)dust!

First a cleverly mangled Ben Franklin quote in your signature line. And now a clever Ben Franklin chair. Something tells me that you could use that chair in ladder mode, and pull a Ben Franklin tome or two from your library shelves. Am I right?

I showed your pics to my wife, expecting that it would be a novel idea to her. But to the contrary, as a girl she had one like it in her house. It had belonged to her grandmother, which would date it to the early 20th century, or earlier.