Some of my family members were given customized tractor seats with their names. They could be hung on the wall or used as an actual seat. So, I was asked to make some stools to mount the seats to.

Plan

Two of the stools were going to be 24″ tall for use at a 36″ counter and two stools were going to be 30″ for use at a bar height (42″ish). All the stools were made from oak I had in my shop. 3 were white oak and 1 was red oak that I later bleached. Here is a picture of some of the oak before milling.

YouTube Video

Milling and Part Definition

I initially cut all of the parts to rough length and the began milling everything. Once all the parts were milled I had to go back through and relabel all the parts so they could be cut to the right length/width. I honestly had to re-sort parts like 3 or 4 times during this build due to the different stock thickness and stool lengths. If I would have been more precise in my initial layouts, I may have gotten an extra stool’s worth of material (maybe).

Laminations and Angles

Some of my stock was only 4/4 and I wanted some thicker stock for the stool, so I laminated material together where needed.

I had to cut some compound angles in the legs to create a 5 degree taper in both directions for a more stable base. The table saw with the miter gage (at 5deg) and the blade beveled (at 5deg) did the trick. You just really need to pay attention when cutting them. I over label my parts when doing this, so I can orient them correctly when cutting. (T-Top, B-Bottom, O-Outside face)

For the top stretcher and lower stretcher the top surface has also been ripped to 5 deg to make it parallel with the floor.

Mortises Everywhere

To connect the legs and stretcher I used loose tenons and had to get creative to prevent overlapping. The mortise layout took a very long time. Then I had to actually drill them out. Some of the tenons were also modified to prevent overlapping

Initial Sanding and Glue Up

I did some initial sanding to the internal faces of the parts and then got read for gluing these up. I did the glue up in two parts for each stool. Just two legs and two stretchers first. Then two sub assemblies and four stretchers to complete the stool.

Attaching Top

The entire time I was building the stools, I was going back and forth on how to attach the tractor seats. I finally decided I was going to recess a piece of plywood into the stool top and then cover it (glue it) with oak. That would give me a solid platform to mount the seats to. Down the road if the seats are no longer needed they can still have a nice oak stool to sit on.

First I needed to create a template to route out the material for the recessed piece of plywood. Then got after it with a pattern bit.

After the top piece of oak was glued on, I had to flush trim it, which was a little hard with the 5 deg angle of the legs and rails. I used a small piece of wood (double stick tape to bottom of router)to angle my router about 5 degrees to get a closer trim.

I really liked how these looked with out the tractor seats due to the recessed ply and top panel. It looks really clean and gives a super solid seat.

Finish and Attaching Seat

I attached the seats with a large central bolt and used small spacer to prevent rotation and eliminate interference of the seat and stool. The spacer is just screwed into place, so it can be removed if no longer needed. I disassembled everything and began the finishing process with Arm-r-Seal.

Below is the picture of the white oak stools

As I mentioned earlier I had a single red oak stool and that I wanted to better mimic white oak. I started by bleaching the red oak to try and get rid of the red and pink

Then I had to bring back the warm brown color with some stain. I didn’t have any sample boards, so I was winging it. I may have used some dye/water before the stain went on.

After I applied the arm-r-seal to the red oak stool it wasn’t too bad. The red oak stool is on the far right.

Finished Pictures and Mistakes

Other than the foot spacing error, the other thing I didn’t like was how far back I had to mount the tractor seat in order for the stool to be comfortable. If I centered the seat if felt like I was falling off the entire time. Overall I needed to make these stools larger in width/length to accommodate the seat and foot clearance. I should have mocked something up from the start with some plywood or scraps to get a sense for it before jumping into it.