Chair using a router. How to make a wooden stool with your own hands

A stool is a familiar, comfortable and compact piece of furniture that is most often used in the kitchen or country house. Chairs purchased in a store and made from wood composites do not always meet all consumer requirements in terms of aesthetics and practicality for such conditions, and they are also quite expensive. This is why the question arises of how to make a stool with your own hands from wood so that it is reliable and lasts for many years.

Anyone who started making furniture with such a simple product as a stool, having become skilled at it, may later want to make more complex and large-scale structures, for example, a table, a cabinet, or something, which will save a decent amount of money for the family budget.

Even such a simple piece of furniture can be made in different variations and used for different needs. To decide which model you would like to obtain as a result of the work, you should consider several similar products.

Children's stool

This stool option will not be out of place in any home, as it is convenient not only for children, but also for adults. It is light in weight and compact in size, so it can easily be moved to any convenient place in the yard or house where it is needed at the moment, and even a small child can move it.

It is best to make such a model from a solid board, which should be well processed first. If you want the stool to be very light, then dry linden is used to make it, which has a beautiful textured pattern and very low density.

If the thickness of the board taken for a small stool is at least 25÷30 mm, then only three main parts will need to be made - these are two legs and a seat, which can be fastened with dowels, even without the use of additional reinforcing elements.

All parts of the product must not have sharp corners or burrs. The workpieces must be rounded and well sanded so that there is no risk of injury or splintering.

This piece of furniture can be used not only for sitting, but also as an ottoman, placing it under your feet - this is especially often used by older people. Therefore, by making such a stool, you can please both kids and grandmothers, showing them your care.

Stool - box

It's common to run out of space for small items in the kitchen or workshop, and this stool model is perfect for clearing out some of the currently unused items on your counter. The boards that form the walls of the box strengthen the entire structure well and at the same time create a box where things that should always be easily accessible can be placed.

For example, women can use such a box to store needlework, as it is spacious enough and there is room in it for balls of yarn and knitting needles, as well as everything necessary for hand embroidery or sewing.

The male half will calmly hide in a box under the seat some items of his home “arsenal” that are most often needed in the household - a hammer and nails, pliers and other not too large tools.

To make such a product you will need a well-processed timber 50×50 mm, a board 200÷250 mm wide and 20÷25 mm thick, plywood for the bottom of the box and fasteners.

Folding stool

A folding stool is suitable for small apartments with small kitchens or for small country houses. It can be kept constantly unfolded, and, if necessary, put away in any closet or niche between the furniture and the wall, since when folded its thickness will be approximately 60÷80 mm, depending on the material chosen for manufacturing and design features.

The seat for this stool model can be made round or square, but each option has its own design for attaching the legs. The legs for such a stool are made of boards or thick, 20÷25 mm high-quality plywood. The base of the product consists of two frames, one of which must fit freely into the other. The frames are fastened together on one side and the other with special screws with bushings or a pin axis, which allows the structure to fold.

Step stool

Another option for a stool that can serve not only for sitting, but also act as a stepladder. This model is always useful both in a private house and in an apartment. For example, it is difficult to do without a stepladder during general cleaning, and without it it is not easy to get the right thing from the top shelf of a high cabinet.

When folded, this design will be no different from a regular stool, since the steps will be under the seat. Turning a stool into a convenient staircase is not difficult - you just need to pull the top of the temporarily inverted steps and carefully place them on the floor. The result is a reliable and stable stepladder, which can also be used as a comfortable footrest when sitting on a stool.

To make this model, you will need massive boards for the seat and steps, as well as thick plywood for the legs and a stringer for the steps.

Stool for the garden

If you plan to use a stool in a summer cottage according to the type, only in a portable version, then you need to prepare a wooden beam for it, since plywood will not work in this case. It will begin to delaminate under the influence of moisture, and the product will soon be hopelessly damaged.

Larch or oak is best suited for manufacturing. If you choose other wood, then it will need to be thoroughly impregnated with moisture-repellent compounds and then painted. Moreover, the process of pre-processing of lumber is carried out even before the structure is assembled.

Furniture used outdoors differs from that found indoors in that between the parts from which the seat and back are assembled (if a bench is made), gaps must be left so that rainwater does not linger on their surface, and parts were ventilated faster.

Stool drawing

Having decided on the model of the future product, a sketch drawing is drawn up, according to which all structural elements will be manufactured. When drawing up a drawing, all the necessary dimensions are immediately calculated and marked on the drawing. It is not at all necessary to make a diagram, observing all the canons and rules of drawing science - even just drawing it by hand will be enough. The main thing is that you can visually evaluate what will happen in the end, see all the parameters of the necessary materials and the principle of their connection.

In the presented diagram you can see the names of some of the parts that are included in the design of the stool - these are drawers, legs and “crackers”. Let’s talk about them in a little more detail, so that in further descriptions it will be clear what we are talking about. All these parts are necessary to hold the structure together and give it the required strength.

Tsargi are bars or boards located under the seat of the stool and fasten the legs together with tenon joints, creating a strong support for the seat.
The leg is an element designed to increase the stability and rigidity of the structure. It is located in the central or lower part of the legs (according to their height) and also fastens them together with tongue-and-groove joints.
“Rusks” are bars, boards or metal corners installed diagonally on the inner corners of the structure under the seat and secured to the drawers and legs.

When drawing up a drawing, it is important to calculate not only the parameters of all visible parts of the structure, but also the size of the internal connecting elements, such as tenons cut at the edges of the drawers, and the grooves in which they will be installed, selected in the legs of the stool.

Tools for work

Without carpentry tools, it is simply impossible to make any piece of furniture from wood. Professional furniture makers have workshops fully equipped with special expensive machines. But just to try yourself as a carpenter, of course, you shouldn’t immediately purchase professional equipment, however, you will still have to prepare some tools.

The list of the most popular tools for working with wood is as follows:

It’s great if the farm has a set of cutters that will help you process the edges of boards, timber and plywood, drill holes of different sizes, or carefully select grooves and grooves on any of the parts.

To get rid of tedious operations, you will need a sanding machine with interchangeable wheels of varying degrees of grain to give the wood surface a smooth finish. This work can be done manually, but it will take much longer.

Electric jigsaw. This tool, of course, can be replaced with a hand hacksaw, but after sawing the boards with it, the edges of the parts will not turn out neat, and you will have to work hard on them using a router. Again, cutting the material by hand will take much longer.

will be necessary not only for screwing in fasteners, but also for drilling holes in parts. Therefore, it is necessary to prepare a set of screwdriver bits and drills of different diameters. Instead of a screwdriver, you can use any drill and a set of hand screwdrivers.

Clamps of various sizes. If you want to make a really high-quality and durable thing, then you must have clamps on hand, since when gluing boards into a solid panel or individual parts together, they must be strongly compressed and left in this position for a fairly long time, and besides these no other instrument can do this.
You always need a hammer and chisels of different sizes. Sometimes you have to resort to using a plane - it can also be manual or electric.
Measuring and marking equipment is being prepared - tape measure, construction square, wooden ruler 500÷1000 mm, simple pencil, surface planer, etc.

In addition to these tools, to carry out the work conveniently, you will need a fairly large and durable table - a workbench.

Making stools

folding stool

Traditional simple stool

The designs of even the simplest products may differ from each other in some elements, which, as a rule, are intended to give the stool additional strength.

Materials for manufacturing

A simple model of a stool looks like this and consists of parts indicated in the drawing by numbers:

1 - Legs.

2 - Stool legs.

3 - Tsargi.

4 - Seat.

5 - Connection elements - supports for installing the seat.

6 - Connecting grooves.

7 - Connecting grooves.

To make traditional stools with a height of 500 mm, a seat of 450x450 mm and straight legs, the following parts will be required:

Four well-processed, smooth beams for the legs, cross-section 50x50 mm, height 485 mm. They can be straight or have narrowed cuts on the inside.
For the seat you need to prepare two or four boards 12÷20 mm thick, 450×225 mm or 450×112.5 mm in size, or a plywood panel 450×450 mm, 12÷20 mm thick.
To give the stool strength, in different types of structures 4 legs and 4 drawers can be used, made of timber with a section of 30×30 and a length of 441 mm, or only drawers - 4 boards, with a cross-section of 30×60 and a length of 441 mm.
Additionally, connecting elements can be used in the form of small pieces of bars fixed on the inside, in the middle of the drawers, but you can do without them if bars of sufficient thickness are taken for the base under the seat.
30×30 mm timber for making “crackers” if they are intended to be installed.
Wooden dowels (chops) for securing the seat to the finished base - 4 pieces, 30 mm long and 8÷10 mm in diameter.
Self-tapping screws.
Wood glue.

Assembling the stool

Illustration
	The first step, in order not to waste time, is to glue the boards for the seat if it will consist of several elements. To do this, well-fitted and polished end sides of the boards are coated with glue, connected to each other and tightened with clamps. This design should dry thoroughly, and while it is setting, you can start assembling the frame base of the stool.
	Next, the bars for the legs are prepared. They must have perfectly even cuts and be the same in height, which can vary, depending on the wishes of the master, and range from 450 to 500 mm.
	The next step is to mark the legs and determine the location of the connecting grooves for installing the tenons of the legs and drawers in them (or just the drawer, if the legs are not included in the design). The holes are selected using a router or chisel.
	Next, the edges of the drawers and legs are processed. Tenons are cut out on them with a width, height and depth that is 1÷1.5 mm smaller than the holes in the grooves in the legs intended for them. The tenons should fit fairly freely, but still fit tightly into the grooves.
	After this, the legs are assembled in pairs, fastened together by means of legs and drawers - their tenon parts are glued into the grooves of the legs. Each of the resulting frames is tightened with clamps. Then, after they have dried, the legs, tied in pairs, are also connected by drawers and legs into a single structure for the base of the stool and again compressed in clamps until they are completely glued. After the glue has dried, all connections are additionally secured with self-tapping screws.
	If it is intended to strengthen the stool with “crumbs”, then they are screwed to the sides and the leg of the stool. This element, installed flush with the top edge of the drawers, will create additional support for the seat.
	The next step is to mark and secure the stool seat. To do this, glue is applied to the back of the panel according to the markings, and then it is laid on the finished base of the stool, leveled and pressed. Next, in the corners, through the seat panel, one hole is drilled, the diameter of which should be 1-2 mm larger than that of the prepared dowels, and the depth should be 5 mm less than their height. Glue is poured into the hole, and then the dowels are driven in. Exposed glue is immediately wiped off. The top of the dowel is cut off using a router, and this area is sanded smooth. Additionally, the seat must be tightened with the frame using clamps until the glue dries completely.

The adhesive can be designed for different drying times, and this is usually indicated on the packaging by the manufacturer. It is possible to operate the products only after the specified period has completely expired.

Folding stool

The folding version of the stool is convenient because, thanks to its compactness, it can not only be stored in a small living space, but can also easily fit into the trunk of a car for transportation to the country.

children's stool

Materials for manufacturing

To make such a stool model, you will need slightly different materials than those used for the traditional product. Thus, some craftsmen prefer to purchase ready-made furniture panels made from natural wood. They are excellent for cutting design parts, since, having cut them out of this material, all that remains is to process their edges.

For the presented version of the stool, the master required a panel measuring 1120×400×24 mm, and in addition to it, additionally, the following materials:

A stud with threads cut on both sides and end nuts, 250x8 mm in size, for through installation, or a stud with blunt ends for installation in blind grooves.
Furniture butterfly hinges size (when opened) 350x400 mm - 4 pieces.
Dowels or choppers 50×8 mm.
Wood glue.
Stain and clear varnish or tinted varnish.
Self-tapping screws 15÷20 mm long.

The dimensions of all structural parts are clearly visible in the presented drawing.

The folding stool consists of the following parts:

The seat is round, with a diameter of 350 mm.
The frame is 166 mm wide, consisting of two bars measuring 500 × 48 × 24 mm, and a cross member 122 mm long.
Frame 122 mm wide from two bars 500x48x24 mm with cuts at the upper ends at an angle of 30 degrees, and crossbars 70 mm long.

Making a stool

Processing of parts and their assembly is carried out in the following order:

Illustration	Brief description of the operation performed
	It must be said that the seat can have a round or square shape with rounded corners, at the choice of the master. In this case, a round seat with a diameter of 350 mm was chosen. For the convenience of folding the stool, a curved hole should be made in the upper part of the seat, approximately 120 mm long and 20÷25 mm wide, so that it is convenient to grasp it with your hand. It can be cut using a router or drilling two holes with a diameter of 20÷25 mm at a distance of 120 mm from each other, and then connecting them by sawing out the wood between them using a jigsaw, making two cuts. In order for the hole to be neat and smooth, its edges must be processed immediately.
	Processing the edge of the seat and the inner edges of the “handle” hole is most often done using a semicircular cutter. But if this tool is not available, then they are put in order by first using a file with a large notch (rasp), and then sandpaper of different grain sizes, gradually bringing the wood to smoothness.
	The next step is to process the prepared bars of the legs. In two of them, which will form the outer frame, you need to cut a groove 180 mm long and 8 mm wide, and 42 mm deep, along which the pin will go. Sometimes the grooves are made through - it is for this case that a stud with threads at the ends is selected, onto which a special cap nut is screwed. In the other two bars, according to the diagram, through holes with a diameter of 8 mm are drilled through which the pin will pass - these elements are intended for the manufacture of a narrow frame.
	The grooves are cut using a router, or holes with a diameter of 8 mm are drilled along the intended line, which are then combined into a common groove using a jigsaw. The work is carried out on a special machine, or the beam is rigidly fixed in a vice, and then holes are drilled in it using a drill or screwdriver.
	The bars that will form the inner, narrower frame of the stool must be carefully sawed off at the top at an angle of 30 degrees - this process can be done on a machine or using a miter box. The corner must be cut perfectly accurately, so this work cannot be done “by eye”. On the lower part of the legs, it is recommended to slightly round the corners and edges.
	The crossbars installed between the legs are mounted on dowels, which are glued into the drilled holes. This process can be done in different ways. Most often, the jumper is first installed with glue in the place intended for it, the legs are compressed in clamps, and left to dry completely. Then, through the outer side of the legs, through holes are drilled, which go deep into the end sides of the jumpers by at least 20÷25 mm. After this, dowels are carefully driven into the holes using glue. Each side of the jumpers will require two fasteners.
	On the back of the seat, according to the drawing, the places where the butterfly loops will be attached are marked. Then, the loops are laid on the marked place and outlined. Further. From this place, a landing “nest” is selected with a depth equal to the thickness of the loop, that is, when secured, the loop should be flush with the main wooden surface.
	Next, the loops are secured on the upper end sides of the legs. They are screwed on with self-tapping screws, the caps of which must be in the same plane as the surface of the hinges. The next step is to attach the second side of the hinges to the sockets prepared for them on the back surface of the seat.
	To make the structure look neat, it is recommended to cover the pin with a tube carved from wood. You can replace the wooden version of the element masking the pin with a plastic tube, since turning this part out of wood is not so easy. The length of the tube should be 68 mm, the internal diameter 9 mm, the thickness of the tube walls can be from 2 to 10 mm.
	Next, the pin is inserted into the narrower frame through a prepared decorative tube, and its ends are inserted into the grooves of the outer, wider frame, along which they will move when folding and unfolding the stool.
	It must be said that a folding stool may have a slightly different design. It uses not one, but two studs, and instead of an internal frame, a solid board is fixed, and it serves as an equally reliable stool leg. The second, outer frame has a jumper at its very bottom, at such a level that when the structure is folded, the leg board fits neatly into it, creating one panel. The fastening of such legs to the seat is carried out in exactly the same way as in the first version of the folding stool.
	For comparison, you can see what one and the other model of the finished product looks like, and choose the one you like best for production. It is probably not difficult to understand that the second design option is simpler to implement.

Stool with wicker seat

A stool with a wicker surface can be made in a low or full, high version - it will be comfortable in any case. Its seat can be made of various materials - durable fabric, belts (including old car seat belts), cord and even plastic-braided cable. It is quite possible to come up with your own version.

Materials for manufacturing

The frame for such products is mounted, in principle, according to the same scheme, however, if a high stool is made for an adult, then the design should be more reliable, that is, it is advisable to strengthen it with durable drawers and legs. We must not forget that in a traditional stool the seat is also a reinforcing part of the structure, and its wicker version itself requires a particularly strong frame.

So, for the frame of a rectangular stool measuring 500×400 mm, you will need:

Wooden blocks 50x50 mm for legs - their height can be selected individually.
Bars for drawers and legs, section 50×25 mm.
Metal or wooden corner elements - “crackers”.
Self-tapping screws.
Leather or synthetic belts, or durable rope in one or two colors.

Let us immediately note that the model shown in the example has a fairly large seat, which reduces the overall strength of the stool. Therefore, it may be more reasonable to make this structural element a little smaller, for example, 350x300 mm.

Find out by reading the options from “classic” to “transformer” in a special article on our portal.

Making a stool

The manufacture of such a stool is carried out in the following order:

Illustration	Brief description of the operation performed
	The structural elements of the stool are cut from the bars prepared for work. The legs can range from 300mm to 500mm in height and the model shown is 400mm high. In order for the legs to be stable, their end parts must be perfectly flat. Therefore, they should be marked using a construction square, and preferably sawed using a circular saw, which will give a perfect cut.
	The next step is to prepare the bars for the legs and drawers. In this case, 4 beams with a length of 450 mm and 4 beams with a length of 300 mm are cut. These elements should also have smooth edges for a snug fit to the legs.
	To make holes for fastening structural elements at a certain angle, a special tool (jig) is used that can guide the drill bit in the desired direction. This device is fixed on a block, and two holes are drilled through its guide holes on each side of the wooden part. After all the elements of the stool are ready, they should be thoroughly cleaned - this process is best carried out before assembling the structure, as it will be easier to see all the problem areas on the wood.
	This photo shows what such holes look like inside the beam.
	Additional fastening of the drawers and legs with the legs can be done using tongue-and-groove fasteners, and then, for maximum reliability, also with metal corners - “crackers”. These parts need to be selected according to the width of the wooden blocks.
	If the first fastening option is chosen, using self-tapping screws, then the assembly and fixation of all parts of the stool look as shown in the presented photo.
	At the end of the assembly, the stool frame should be strong and stable. When leaning on it, it should not swing.
	If it is planned to be painted or tinted, then this process is carried out before the seat is made.
	To equip the seat for the model shown in this example, 17 leather belts, 35 mm wide, were required. As already mentioned, seat belts used in cars can be used instead. The straps are screwed with two self-tapping screws measuring 10 mm at a distance of 9 mm from each other, onto the wide side of the beam extending inside the stool frame. The length of the belts must be measured in advance using a tape measure, “traversing” the entire path of the belt with its flexible tape. First you need to secure the belts, which will be located along the length of the rectangle. Having secured the belts on the inside, they go around the beam, pull it through the seat frame to the opposite king beam, go around it and also fasten it on the inside using the same screws.
	After the longitudinal belts are secured, the belts that will intertwine the already tensioned elements should be secured in the same way. They are screwed onto one of the long sides of the frame. Then, each of the belts is passed transversely through the longitudinal belts, in the form of weaving. After this, they are also wrapped on the inside of the opposite drawer, stretched and screwed. Having completed this operation, you can proceed to “testing” the product.
	Another option for designing a flexible stool seat is to stretch a strong rope or cord over the frame. In this case, paper rope was used. In addition to this, you need to prepare furniture nails with wide heads and a hammer, as well as clamping pliers and an awl.
	You can purchase rope of different shades for weaving and display one of the selected patterns on the surface of the seat, getting a stylish piece of furniture that will complement the interior design.
	The end of a rope of the same color is nailed to the back side of the drawer using two furniture nails.
	Next, the rope is carefully wrapped around two long opposite sides of the frame. If the frame is square, then the process of laying the rope can begin from any side of the structure.
	By braiding the opposite sides with a rope, its loops are pressed against each other as tightly as possible and pulled. Having covered approximately 100÷120 mm of the length of the seat with braiding, the rope is temporarily fixed with pliers so that it does not loosen. Work continues in this way until the entire surface of the seat is covered with a wound rope.
	Having finished covering the seat along two sides with one color, you can move on to weaving it across with twine of a different color. To do this, in this case, take a white rope and fasten it also on the back side of the drawer, running parallel to the already wound rope.
	Using a white cord, any pattern can be “highlighted” from a red background. This process is relatively simple and will be accessible even to a beginner.
	In this case, the white cords are pulled between the red rope so that the result is a herringbone pattern, that is, stripes are turned diagonally from the center of the seat.
	Having intertwined 6-8 rows and pulled them tight, the white rope is grabbed on the back side of the drawer with a furniture nail. If this is not done, the seat will quickly stretch and sag when using the stool. This procedure must be carried out every 6–8 rows, driving nails either on one side or on the opposite side.
	The result should be a durable seat, four threads thick, with an interesting design. If you want to choose a different pattern, woven from three or even four colors of rope, then on the Internet you can always find exactly what will suit a specific interior.

It should be noted that in the second option, where the seat is covered with rope, the frame is not very strong and is unlikely to support people with heavy weight, but such a stool is perfect for a children's room or as a footrest. If you want to make a full-fledged product for the seat, you need to choose a more massive beam for the frame and strengthen it especially reliably.

Find out by studying several available options in a special article on our portal.

In conclusion, it is worth saying that making a stool yourself, without having experience working with wood and special tools, is not as simple as it seems at first glance. However, if you have the desire and enough patience, then it’s quite possible to try yourself as a carpenter. The main thing is that you need to get ready for serious work and not do it “carelessly.”

Video: master class on making a simple wooden stool

If it’s still worth thinking about the cost-effectiveness of a homemade stool, then making a chair yourself is definitely justified: an ordinary common chair from a home workshop can look no worse than a store-bought one, but will cost 2-3 times less. This is if you purchase material “from scratch” without using accumulated reserves. And if you go for something exclusive, which is quite possible for an average craftsman with a chair, then the savings will reach simply unimaginable limits, see at the end.

There is one more important point. The chair differs from not only technically, as will be discussed later, but also ideologically. A stool is an essentially utilitarian product; It is generally considered bad manners to keep stools in the living room, preferably poufs. And a chair is one of the pieces of furniture that determines the face of the interior no less than a table, or even more. Subtle experts in etiquette judge a person's dignity by the quality and condition of his shoes, and the state of his affairs by the chairs in the house. If a person has the ability, time and desire to make a chair with imagination and taste, such as, for example. in the photo, then he deserves trust, even if he is still in cramped circumstances. And these are just the non-convertible chairs; folding and, say, step-chairs are a special class of joinery, which we will discuss later.

Note: the subtleties of high treatment sometimes reach the point of curiosity. This is how, for example, a certain British sailor lord put it about the first wife of Napoleon I, Josephine de Beauharnais: “In England she could become a real lady. Just look at the contours of her stern!”

How is the chair constructed?

Chairs are generally divided into 2 classes: living and dining. The difference is primarily in the seat; in the dining ones it is narrower at the back and a little higher. This was invented back in time immemorial, so that it would be more convenient for servants to serve feasters, and for them to sit upright in order to absorb more food and drinks. Structurally, a dining chair differs from a living room chair in that the legs are located lower; this is required to ensure strength. How the chair is structured in general and what the approximate dimensions of both are shown in Fig.

Dining chairs are not considered essential items these days; Most people make do with living rooms in all cases. A drawing with details of the structure of an ordinary living room chair is shown in Fig. Its feature is straight rear legs, which saves material and simplifies work. A physiologically acceptable sitting posture is ensured by arching the back. It will not be difficult for an average-level home craftsman to draw up details based on it and the general dimensions, and the subtleties encountered in the work are described below.

Note: blanks are collected in bags for batches of 4 chairs for the sake of convenience and accuracy of marking with a hand-held measuring tool. With this organization of work, the quartets of chairs turn out to be exactly the same, this is the first subtlety.

Why is a chair not a stool?

At first glance, it seems that the chair is just a stool with a backrest. But it’s the back that makes it completely different from a stool from a mechanical point of view: people lean on it, or even fall apart. If a stool can generally be considered something solid, working primarily on compression; well, even for bending and shear when rocking, then in a chair the loads from the junction of the longitudinal drawers with the rear legs are much higher, of a different nature and spread throughout the structure in a rather bizarre way. Therefore, by the way, as a rule, they do not install transverse legs in chairs: they will not work in the structure, only the excess material will go away.

The chair is finished using common methods for furniture: tinting with stains, varnishing, painting, veneering, upholstery. But technologically, chairs differ from stools in the following ways:

The nature of most of the compounds used.
The choice of wood - most of all.
Assembly method.
Soft seat device.

Joiner's tenon joints

To make a chair with our own hands, we will have to thoroughly master furniture (carpentry) tongue-and-groove joints. Basic information about them is given in the article about a do-it-yourself stool; Here we will mention something in relation to the chair.

Open connections and with through tenons in chairs for the sake of aesthetics are rarely used, as are connections reinforced with hardware: bolts, confirmations, self-tapping screws. A nail in a chair is basically the same as a car hood tied with rope.

The chairs are assembled using blind tongue-and-groove joints that are invisible from the outside; they are sometimes called miter joints. Assembly is done with gluing; wedging of tenons is often used, because They don't make regular chairs with removable legs. A chair with wedged tenons is more labor-intensive, but very strong and durable, because all parts of the connection dry out together.

How to make a blind groove (hole) for a tenon is shown in Fig. If you have a hand-held wood router, then you don’t need to pick out the excess with a chisel, but you do need to drill the edges of the hole: it’s easy to just “go away” with an end mill. In this case, the edges of the tenon are also rounded, but it will only be neater and stronger.

It seems strange, but it is with tenons that amateurs most often have problems: it is difficult to saw a workpiece for it with a hacksaw without “scratching” the base of the tenon, and a tenon sawed at the base is an unacceptable defect, because the strength of the connection drops sharply. Deliberately under-saw and remove the fold (extra wood around the tenon) with your hands - the tenon may come out “plump” or oblique, which is no more acceptable. Therefore, it is best to make furniture tenons using a router with some simple devices, see video:

Video: k How to make a furniture tenon with your own hands

Wood for chair

The coniferous tree from which such good stools were made is definitely not suitable for a chair, even hard larch. Reason: any coniferous wood is straight-layered, and in the chair there are loads that can cause chipping along the layer - I would like to see less, but where can I go. Coniferous wood will only go into a chair in the form of plywood on the base of the seat.

For a wooden chair, use deciduous, fine-grained, dense, durable species: oak, beech, hornbeam, walnut, elm, rowan. Birch will be used for children's chairs; and birch plywood - for folding ones. Preparation conditions are general furniture: room dryness (8-12%), not chamber drying, impregnation with water-polymer emulsion or other harmless biocides, for example. high-purity mineral oil for furniture, oil-wax compositions, acrylic compounds for furniture.

Wood for a chair will cost less if you take it not sawn, but in solids, and cut it yourself using a circular saw or an angle grinder with a circular saw in a homemade frame. For some products, e.g. bar stools, see below, you can’t do without an array, because... lumber of the required width is either not available or is very expensive. In this case, you need to know that solid wood is sold for decorative and structural purposes. The second ones are more expensive, because their mechanical properties are standardized and checked, while decorative solids are not.

The last thing to consider when choosing wood for a chair is that “decorative” defects are unacceptable. In a stool or tabletop, slanted, twisted, tightly fitting knots can be beneficial, ultimately giving a beautiful texture, but a chair made from such wood will soon break.

Assembly

A wooden chair is assembled without a seat twice: first dry and without wedges, and after adjusting the parts and checking the configuration by measuring the sides and pairs (oblique diagonals from the lower corner to the opposite upper one), finally with wedging and gluing. In both cases, the so-called. an apron made from the rear legs, back and longitudinal sides, and the “apron” is already adjusted to it, see fig.

Note: note the way the tenons are inserted into the front legs here and below when we get to the seat posts. With equal spikes, like in a stool, the sides of the chair do not cut into the legs, and there will not be adequate strength.

About frame details

All parts of the chair are made from solid wood. The temptation to make the rear legs prefabricated to save material is great, but don’t: they will soon break. It’s better to take on the set right away, marking the contours on the surface of the board according to the template with a shift. If the chair is for dining, then in this case the longitudinal drawers should also be slanted/curved, and the question arises: how to make tenons with grooves? It is very difficult to mow at home, and it is not necessary. You will have to spend a little more material, but oblique/curved drawers with straight tenons can be obtained without much difficulty from a board as thick as the drawer height, see fig.:

Only now you need to mill the tenons, using a mandrel with the required angle, and always in a bag: remove the fold from the long sides, transfer the bag and fold the short sides. The corners of the studs are rounded separately, this is no longer critical.

Back

The back of a chair, as you know, can be solid, hard, stacked, or soft. Solid rigid - just a curved bar. It is cut out, like curved drawers, as well as details of hard inlaid backs, pos. 1-3 in Fig.; We won’t talk about the backs of Viennese and other complex chairs for now. The back parts are assembled on spikes; We’ll leave chairs with backs with screws in museums of Soviet consumer goods.

For a simple soft back, pos. 4, you need a straight top bar and, possibly, an intermediate support (purlin, “backrest”). The base of the back is made of 4-6 mm plywood. They cover it in the same way as the seat, see below, but use foam rubber no thicker than 7 mm or use batting/felt. The soft padding is placed on glue, not reaching 15-20 mm to the edges. The decorative lining is sewn into a pocket, placed on a base with padding and stitched at the bottom. Place the backrest in the grooves selected in the top bar, rear drawer or purlin and rear legs; select the grooves by measuring the thickness of the back covered with fabric. The sequence of chair assembly changes:

assemble the left (right) part of the apron with the back drawer, top bar and purlin for dry use;
put the backrest, perhaps with adjustment;
they complete the apron by installing the missing rear leg with its own longitudinal drawer;
the front part is attached to the apron;
after checking the configuration and final adjustment, they go through everything with glue (optionally with wedging) in the same sequence;
The soft insert of the backrest is finally placed either dry, or with a minimum amount of glue added only to the grooves so that it does not squeeze out onto the fabric.

Seat

How the chair cushion is arranged is shown in Fig. with a drawing at the beginning. Unlike the seat of a stool, the upholstery in this case does not stretch as much when the sitter fidgets, so the inner upholstery of the base is not required. The base is made of plywood or a solid board with a thickness of 12-30 mm. But the seat of a chair is more difficult to clean than a stool, so the foam padding must be covered with felt or, worse, batting that absorbs sweat. Solid particles of dried sweat are subsequently squeezed out of the seat.

The upholstery of the chair seat also does not need to be fastened as carefully as that of a stool; you can get by with pinning it with a furniture stapler without gluing. Cover the pillow with decorative fabric in the usual way, trimming the scars that form at the corners. But the cladding made as shown in Fig. will last much longer. If the chair is covered with much more elastic and expensive leather than fabric, this is a must-have option.

Laths or jibs?

Drawings of chairs most often show the fastening of the seat to slats, embedded in the legs along with the longitudinal drawers and additionally attached to them with self-tapping screws. This highly technological and low-labor method is widely used in industry, but for yourself it would be much better to lay the seat on the jibs, see fig. on right. The chair will be much stronger, the seat will get dirty less and will be easier to remove for cleaning.

How to install the seat?

A seat simply laid on top of the support frame loses all the advantages compared to a stool, and the chair frame experiences increased loads. Therefore, it is better to place the seat of the chair in a tray formed by the drawers; To do this, if the seat is on jibs, they are placed lower by the thickness of the base of the seat without a cushion. So that the front drawer does not interfere with the legs, it is lowered to the same thickness, which will only make the entire frame stronger, and the seat itself is moved forward by the thickness of the drawer or a little more. Then the front jibs cut into the front frame flush with its top.

About curly legs

I really want to put a homemade chair on curly wooden legs. This is not at all as difficult as it might seem, you just have to spend money on thick beams: for the front legs, taking into account the margin for processing, a 150x150 beam will do, and for the rear legs - from 250x250. How the figured legs on the bars are marked is clear from Fig. Basic conditions: you need 2 identical templates, with their heads and heels meeting on the inner (relative to the finished leg) edge of the beam. However, the convergence of the heels is not necessary, then they will turn out to be wide, like hooves, and the trace of their supporting surface will look like a horseshoe. The technology itself does not require art education: they simply remove the excess from the side of the inner edge and alternately from the outer edges.

Different chairs

We will assume that you now have a good idea of how to make an ordinary living room or dining chair. But there are a huge number of varieties of household chairs. Most of them are folding ones; I must say that folding furniture is now experiencing a rapid boom and is widely used not only as temporary, but also to save space and/or modify home design. Chairs play an important role here, see for example. video:

Video: folding chair as a solution for small apartments

Folding

Folding chairs, so to speak, have a classic look, they look similar both modern and ancient, see fig. Until recently, their advantage was that when folded they take up little space. But, firstly, the tilt of the back of such a chair is not optimal. Secondly, the mechanism requires the shoes of the rear edge of the seat to slide into longitudinal grooves, which is rather complicated and weakens the structure. Therefore, patents for chairs similar to each other number in the thousands, and in the end the optimum was not found at all where they were looking, see below.

For example, an attempt to optimize the design of the original folding chair is shown in the following. rice.:

There is only one drawback, but it is fatal: the huge overhang of the seat forward relative to the line of support, which is why the first sitting on a new chair can end in failure in the literal sense of the word. Other designers have tried to make the folding chair more ergonomic or by making the rear legs with a bend, at the top in Fig. below, or by moving the joint of the spreader upward, below in the same place. In both cases, the design cannot be called simple and the dimensions when folded are “protruding”. And in the first case, the conditionally rear (i.e., connected to the sides of the back) legs cannot be made in one piece, which is contraindicated for any chair.

A solution was found relatively recently, and when you see what it is, you involuntarily recall the statement of T. A. Edison: “Everyone knows that this cannot be done. There is a fool who doesn’t know this, and it is he who makes the invention.” In this case, a plywood folding chair-slab, see fig. There is no need to describe it, and everything is clear. The double seat support distributes the loads throughout the structure. In addition, by drilling rows of holes on the sides of the seat, you can adjust the chair to suit the rider; There are such modifications on sale.

Canvas

All the described chairs have a drawback: they are hard. Plywood, however, can be made soft, but the thickness when folded will increase. These chairs are suitable for a picnic, but for long periods of sitting you need something softer. The solution has also been known for a long time: chairs with a canvas seat and, possibly, a back. For example, in Fig. Below is a canvas folding chair for a summer house. The design is a little complicated, but the comfort pays for it, and when folded, such a chair is not much thicker than a classic one. True, the leg rests across the seat, but since, lounging in the shade, your legs are not tucked under the chair, this is not so scary.

Even more use is made of canvas and tarpaulin in fishing chairs; Lightness and compactness play a role here. But the usual fishing and tourist gear, pos. 1 in Fig., for hiking they are still bulky and the backpack drags noticeably. If you are going camping by car, you can take a fishing plywood folding chair, pos. 2. Its feature is an additional rotating plate on the back; On such a seat it is more convenient to languish during a sluggish bite.

For walking and in general in any case, the most convenient option is a tripod chair, pos. 3. This is not difficult to make with your own hands; as shown on the right in Fig. A tripod with bamboo legs is not felt at all in the backpack. If you can find a tight, durable rubber ring, like a wrist expander, then making a tripod chair is even easier: the rubber band is simply pulled to the middle of a bag of legs.

Bar chairs

Recently there has been an increased interest in furniture for bars and cafes. In fact, there are no adjectives “barny”, “barnaya”, “barnoe”, “barnye” in the Russian language. It wouldn’t hurt, since these bars are everywhere you turn, but they really don’t fit into the ranks of the language. However, let the philologists be wise here, and we will assume that the bar stool exists and is worth making.

Furniture for bars “from this” and “from that” and with a markup “per star” has become boring to everyone. Inexpensive and fairly high-quality furniture for bars at an affordable price sells out well, and here a master individual entrepreneur or just an individual artisan can make good money.

A bar stool is basically a tall stool, the height of a dining table, with a footrest. The easiest way to make the seat base is from 2 plywood or solid circles with a thickness of 20 mm and a diameter of 350-370 and 250-270 mm. The smaller circle is the intermediate link for attaching the seat to the chair post, and the larger circle is the base of the seat. If it is hard, the circles are made from solid wood, ground and varnished; plywood bases are covered.

The soft seat of a bar stool is of the same design as for a soft stool, only it is immediately covered with decorative fabric or leatherette; It can also be done in leather if the customer pays. Decorative covers, especially on round seats, in the bar will slide off long before the end of the evening. The foam rubber for the seat cushion is as dense and elastic as possible, from number 35. From it you can make a pillow with a thickness of 60-70 mm, and from 45 - 50 up to 120-150 mm. The lower circle is attached to the support with self-tapping screws from above, and the finished seat is attached to it from under the bottom.

In Fig. above shows the detailing and assembly method of a massive, solid bar stool; Dimensions of parts 3 and 4 are in cm. Please note that part 4 is asymmetrical, because 4 parts 3 are assembled into a nest. In Fig. on the right is a lighter-looking chair with round legs. The basis of his seat is 2 identical circles with a diameter of 340 mm. The required strength is given to it by a ring leg together with exactly the same foot. It also shows methods for assembling and cutting out a leg with a footrest: in a 20-24 mm plywood blank, first drill holes to the diameter of the legs with a feather drill, cut out the inner circle with a jigsaw and cut off the ring along the outer contour.

Here in Fig. - a very stable and quite original-looking chair support in a bar made of planks. The base for it is made of plywood in the same way as the previous version, but it is placed on top. By carefully cutting out beveled grooves for the boards, you can give it the appearance of a solid ring, which is aesthetically pleasing.

What about the children?

No, we haven't forgotten about the children. It’s just that children’s furniture is so unique that it needs to be considered separately. Children, for all their imagination, are always pragmatists, naturally determined to survive in the future. That's why they are tireless researchers. So there is no particular point in “polishing” the aesthetics of a chair for a child: functionality and durability are more important here. It’s amazing how such a little thing manages to break very durable things. Maybe future scientists will understand; perhaps by reconsidering the fundamental laws of nature. Just kidding, kidding. We were all like that, we just forgot, and there are no indigo children at all.

The best material for a children's chair is birch or birch plywood. Its relatively lower strength is not a hindrance in this case: the parts are shorter and there are lower stresses per unit of cross-sectional area. But to assemble children's high chairs on confirmations with plugs or dowels, pos. 1 in Fig. It doesn’t stand higher, like adult furniture: they will break it, pick it apart, unscrew it. This design is suitable for a chair for growth, with an adjustable seat and footrest, pos. 2. It would be best to make the children's chair quick-assembled without fastenings, pos. 3. It will be taken apart - no big deal, it won’t take long to collect. And he (she) will only have more intelligence and spatial imagination. So we give in Fig. drawings of a children's prefabricated chair, and in addition to it - a diagram of a folding chair for very ignorant children. For a dad whose saw and hammer don’t fall out of their hands, repeating it probably won’t be a problem.

Note: also in Fig. Below is a children’s chair “adult-style”, on a frame and self-tapping screws. For some reason, boys like these more and they break them less.

Ladder chairs

Both children and adults will find a chair that turns into a ladder useful at home. The first - so as not to rummage through a dusty pantry and not risk breaking my wife’s jars when pulling out a stepladder. The second is to climb to the second floor of a bed or children's corner. This is especially important in small apartments, where there may simply not be room for a stationary ladder. In general, if necessary, in Fig. – drawings of an adult ladder chair; the legs, of course, do not have to be curly. A children's ladder chair of the same design is obtained by proportionally reducing the dimensions, except for the thickness of the steps.

Hedgehog under the skin

With the best, honest intentions and on a reasonable basis, without any psycho-engineering tricks. Take a look at fig. on right. Cool, yeah? Especially if you ask about the price of 1 (one) product. All the furnishings of a decent bachelor's one-room apartment, including a refrigerator, vacuum cleaner, microwave and electric boiler, cost about the same.

The reason is the high labor intensity of such a chair, which cannot be mechanized or robotized. Or it gives in so tightly that it’s easier to do it with your hands. Highly qualified and highly paid.

But, by the way, the technology for creating such unspeakable beauty is ridiculously trivial, it just requires a lot of attention and accuracy. The materials are also ordinary - wood, plywood, fabric, foam rubber. Large production areas and complex equipment are not required; a garage or shed will be enough. This is the “hedgehog under your skin”: you can do it yourself at home!

Unfortunately, it is not possible to give even a cursory description of this chair in a review article: its volume and labor intensity are quite consistent with the nature of the object. But, let’s hope that we will have another opportunity to tell you how to make a chair worthy of a royal palace with your own hands at home on an average family budget.

A stool is a necessary and useful thing in any home. Therefore, now we will look in detail at how to make a wooden stool with your own hands. The best choice for making a wooden stool is oak, which is a very beautiful and, most importantly, durable material for furniture.

1. First you need to plan four bars measuring 40x40x440 mm on a jointing saw machine, which in the future will be the legs of the stool.

2. Then, in exactly the same way, you need to prepare four blanks for the legs of the stool (30x20x280 mm) and for the drawers (20x50x280 mm).

3. To make a seat, you need to plan three boards and connect them together using the lining method. Connecting grooves can be made using a hand router, and the boards must be joined using PVA glue.

The result should be a square monolithic board measuring 360x360x20 mm.

4. Using a shaped cutter, you can remove the edges of the corners to make the seat of the stool comfortable and beautiful.

5. You will also need to prepare four fasteners from oak bars, which will be needed to ensure that the seat is firmly attached to the stool frame.

6. After all the preparatory work, you can begin making grooves on the legs and tenons on the drawers.

In order to avoid confusion with the drawers and legs, you need to number everything. Since the distance between the legs in this design is 240 mm, the cut for the tenon must be made at a distance of 120 mm from the middle of the drawer in both directions.

Tenons can be made either with a router or with a chisel.

7. Once the work with the legs, drawers, tenons and grooves on them is completed, you can start working with the legs. The difference will be that the grooves on the legs are closed at the end, and not open. The distance between the upper part of the leg and the lower part of the drawer should be 270 mm, which will give strength to the stool.

8. After all the grooves and tenons are ready, it is necessary to assemble the frame of the stool in order to check it for distortions. It is necessary to ensure that the tenons fit tightly into the grooves, but without using strong blows, since oak is strong, but can split when wedging. Therefore, it is better to check everything carefully in advance.

9. After all connections have been checked, you need to coat everything with PVA glue and assemble the stool frame.

10. On the legs, at the joints, you need to drill holes and hammer wooden dowels coated with glue into them. This will help strengthen the connection and prevent it from becoming loose.

11. Now all that remains is to attach the seat to the stool frame. On the inside of the seat, it is necessary to screw the connecting bars using self-tapping screws so that the seat fits flush into the frame. After this, you need to screw these bars to the drawers.

Accessories for a hand router can expand the functionality of hand-held power tools and make their use more convenient, comfortable and safe. Serial models of such devices are quite expensive, but you can save on their purchase and make devices for equipping a wood router with your own hands.

Various types of attachments can turn a hand router into a truly universal tool.

The main task that milling tools solve is to ensure that the tool is positioned in relation to the surface being machined in the required spatial position. Some of the most commonly used milling machine attachments come standard with milling machines. Those models that have a highly specialized purpose are purchased separately or made by hand. At the same time, many devices for a wood router have such a design that making them yourself does not present any special problems. For homemade devices for a hand router, you don’t even need drawings - their drawings will be enough.

Among the accessories for a wood router that you can make yourself, there are a number of popular models. Let's take a closer look at them.

Rip fence for straight and curved cuts

A rip fence for or other base surface, which allows you to make straight cuts in wood relative to these surfaces, is one of the most popular devices and is included in the standard kit of many models. Using such a device, the base element for which, in addition to the work table, can be the side of the workpiece or a guide rail, the grooves on the workpiece are processed, and its edge part is also milled.

The design of the parallel stop for the router includes the following components:

rods that are inserted into special holes in the milling cutter body;
a locking screw, by means of which the rods are fixed in the required position;
fine adjustment screw, which is needed in order to more accurately adjust the distance at which the cutter axis will be from the base surface;
support pads with which the device rests on the base surface (in some models of parallel stops it is possible to change the distance between the support pads).

To prepare the router stop for work, you need to do the following:

insert the stop rods into the holes in the base of the router and secure them in the required position with a locking screw;
Loosen the locking screw and use the fine adjustment screw to adjust the distance between the cutter axis and the supporting surface of the fixture.

By adding one simple part to the rip fence, you can use this device to create not only straight, but also curved cuts in wood. Such a part is a wooden block, one side of which is straight, and on the other there is a round or angular recess. It is placed between the support pads of the stop and the base surface of the processed wood workpiece, which has a curved shape.

In this case, naturally, the straight side of the block should rest against the support pads of the device, and the side with the recess should rest against the curved base surface. You should work with a parallel stop, additionally equipped with such a block, with extreme caution, since the position of the router itself in this case will be quite unstable.

Guide rail

The guide rail, like the rip fence, ensures the linear movement of the router relative to the base surface during wood processing. Meanwhile, unlike a parallel stop, such a guide for a router can be located at any angle to the edge of the workpiece. Thus, the guide rail can provide the ability to accurately move the router during wood processing in almost any direction in the horizontal plane. A guide rail equipped with additional structural elements is also useful when milling holes located in wood at a certain pitch.

Fixation of the guide bar on the work table or workpiece is ensured by special clamps. If the basic configuration of the device does not include such clamps, ordinary clamps will be suitable for these purposes. Some models of guide bars can be equipped with a special adapter, which is often called a shoe. The adapter, connected to the base of the router via two rods, slides along the profile of the tire during processing and thus ensures the movement of the working head of the router in a given direction.

A milling device such as a guide rail is best used in conjunction with routers whose support platform is equipped with height-adjustable legs. This is explained as follows. In cases where the supporting surfaces of the router and the tire are in different horizontal planes, which can happen when the device is too close to the wood workpiece being processed, the adjustable legs of the tool make it possible to eliminate such a discrepancy.

Guide devices for equipping a router, which, despite the simplicity of their design, will be highly efficient in use, can be made with your own hands without much difficulty. The simplest of such devices can be made from a long wooden block, which is secured to the workpiece using clamps. To make this device even more convenient, you can supplement it with side stops. If you place and fix a block simultaneously on two (or even more) pieces of wood, you can mill a groove on their surface in one pass.

The main disadvantage that distinguishes the device of the above-described design is that it is not easy to accurately fix the block relative to the line of the future cut. The guide devices of the two designs proposed below do not have such a disadvantage.

The first of these devices is a device made of interconnected boards and plywood sheets. To ensure alignment of this device with respect to the edge of the groove being made, the following conditions must be met: the distance from the edge of the stop to the edge of the plywood (base) must exactly correspond to the distance at which the tool used is located from the extreme point of the router base. The device of the proposed design is used if the tree is processed with cutters of the same diameter.

For milling operations performed with tools of different diameters, it is advisable to use devices of a different design. The peculiarity of the latter is that when using them, the router comes into contact with the stop with the entire sole, and not just its middle part. The design of such a stop includes a folding board on hinges, which ensures the correct spatial position of the device in relation to the surface of the wood product being processed. The purpose of this board is to ensure that the stop is fixed in the required position. After this procedure is completed, the board folds back and thereby frees up space for the working head of the milling cutter.

When making such a device for a router with your own hands, you should keep in mind that the distance from the center of the tool used to the extreme point of the base of the router must correspond to the width of the folding board and the gap between the board and the stop, if it is provided in the design of the device. If in the manufacture of this device you focused only on the edge of the cutter and the edge of the groove that needs to be formed with its help, such a device can only be used with cutters of the same diameter.

Often, grooves in wood blanks have to be milled across the fibers of the material, which leads to the formation of scoring marks. The amount of scoring can be reduced by devices that, by pressing the fibers in the place where the cutter comes out, do not allow them to break off from the surface of the wood being processed. The design of one of these devices consists of two boards, which are connected to each other with screws at an angle of 90°. The width of the groove made in such a device must match the width of the recess created in the wood product, for which cutters of different diameters are used on different sides of the stop.

Another milling device, the design of which consists of two L-shaped elements, fixed to the wood product being processed with clamps, is required for milling open grooves and ensures a minimum amount of scoring during processing.

Copy rings and templates

A copying sleeve for a router is a device with a protruding edge that slides along the template and thus sets the movement of the cutter in the required direction. Such a ring can be fixed on the base of the router in various ways: screwed with screws, screwed into a threaded hole, inserted with special tendrils into holes in the base of the tool.

The diameters of the copying ring and the tool used should have close values, but it is important that the ring does not touch the cutting part of the cutter. If the diameter of the ring exceeds the transverse size of the copy cutter, then such a template to compensate for the difference between its size and the diameter of the tool should not exceed the size of the workpiece.

A milling template, made in the form of a ring, can be fixed to a piece of wood using double-sided tape and clamps, with which both parts are pressed to the work table. After milling according to the template, you should check that the ring was pressed tightly against the edge of the template during the milling operation.

Milling templates can be used not only to process the entire edge of a product, but also to give its corners a rounded shape. Using such a template for a router, you can make roundings of various radii at the corners of the wood product being processed.

Templates used for working with a hand router can be equipped with a bearing or ring. In the latter case, the following conditions must be met: the ring must exactly match the diameter of the cutter, or stops must be provided in the design of the fixture that allow the template to be moved away from the edge of the workpiece and thereby eliminate the difference between the radii of the tool and the ring.

Using templates, which can be adjustable, you can not only mill the edges of the wood product being processed, but also create shaped grooves on its surface. In addition, if you make a template of the appropriate design, which is not very difficult, you can quickly and accurately cut grooves for door hinges with it.

Cutting round and elliptical grooves

To cut grooves in the shape of a circle or ellipse in wood with a hand router, use compass devices. The simplest compass for a router consists of a rod. One end of it is connected to the base of the router, and the other is equipped with a screw and pin. The pin is inserted into a hole that acts as the center of a circle, along the contour of which a groove is formed. To change the radius of the groove circle, for which such a compass for a router is used, it is enough to move the rod relative to the base of the router. More convenient to use are compass devices, the design of which includes two rods rather than one.

Equipment operating on the principle of a compass is a fairly common type of device used to work with a router. With their help, it is very convenient to mill shaped grooves with different radii of curvature. As mentioned above, the typical design of such a device, which you can make yourself, includes a screw with a pin that can move along the groove of the device and thereby allows you to adjust the radius of the groove being created.

In cases where it is necessary to create a hole of small diameter with a milling cutter on wood or other material, a different type of equipment is used. A design feature of such devices, which are fixed on the bottom of the router base, is that their pin, installed in the central hole on the workpiece, is located under the base of the power tool being used, and not outside it.

Base Corner Guides
Centering pin Compass assembly. Bottom view Compass assembly. View from above

Using special devices, you can use a hand router to create not only round, but also oval holes in wood. The design of one of these devices includes:

a base that can be fixed to the wood product being processed with vacuum suction cups or screws;
two shoes that move along intersecting guides;
two mounting rods;
bracket connecting the base of the device to the router.

Due to special grooves in the bracket of such a device, its base plate is easily aligned in the same plane with the base of the router. If this equipment is used to perform milling along a round contour, then one shoe is used, and if along an oval contour, then both. The cut made with such a device is of higher quality than if it was made using a jigsaw or band saw. This is explained by the fact that processing with the milling cutter used in this case is carried out by a tool that rotates at high speed.

Devices for fast and high-quality milling of grooves on narrow surfaces

Any home craftsman can answer the question of how to make grooves for door hinges or a lock. For these purposes, as a rule, a drill and an ordinary chisel are used. Meanwhile, you can perform this procedure much faster and with less labor if you take a milling cutter equipped with a special device for this purpose. The design of such a device, with the help of which grooves of various widths can be created on narrow surfaces, is a flat base fixed to the base of the router. On the base, which can have either a round or rectangular shape, two pins are installed, the task of which is to ensure the straight movement of the router during processing.

The main requirement that the attachment to a milling cutter of the design described above must meet is that the axes of the guide pins must be in line with the center of the cutter used for processing wood. If this condition is met, then the groove made at the end of the workpiece will be located strictly in its center. To move the groove to one side, just put a sleeve of the appropriate size on one of the guide pins. When using a similar attachment on a hand router, you need to ensure that the guide pins are pressed against the side surfaces of the workpiece during processing.

It is possible to ensure the stability of the router when processing narrow surfaces without special devices. This problem is solved using two boards, which are attached to both sides of the workpiece in such a way as to form one plane with the surface on which the groove is made. When using this technological technique, the router itself is positioned using a parallel stop.

Milling devices for processing bodies of revolution

Many accessories for manual milling machines, made by users to suit their needs, do not have serial analogues. One of these devices, the need for which arises quite often, is a device that facilitates the process of cutting grooves in rotating bodies. Using such a device, in particular, you can easily and accurately cut longitudinal grooves on posts, balusters and other wood products of a similar configuration.

Milling cutter and frame assembly Carriage for router Dividing disc

The design of this device is:

frame;
mobile milling carriage;
a disk used to set the rotation angle;
screws that secure the workpiece being processed;
locking screw

If such a device is additionally equipped with a simple drive, which can be used as a conventional drill or screwdriver, then milling on it can successfully replace processing performed on a lathe.

Tenon milling device

A tenon-cutting device for a router allows high-precision processing of parts connected using the tongue-and-groove principle. The most versatile of these devices allow you to mill various types of tenons (dovetail and straight). The operation of such a device involves a copying ring, which, moving along a groove in a special template, ensures precise movement of the cutter in a given direction. To make one yourself, you must first select the groove patterns for which it will be used.

Several additional options for expanding the functionality of the router

Why do you need to create additional devices to equip a hand router, which is already a fairly functional device? The fact is that such devices will allow you to turn your manual router into a full-fledged processing center. So, by fixing a manual milling cutter on a guide (this can be), you can not only make the process of using it easier, but also increase the accuracy of the operations performed. The design of such a useful device does not contain complex elements, so making it for a router and drill with your own hands will not be difficult.

Many home craftsmen, wondering how to work with a hand router with even greater efficiency, make a functional work table for this tool. Naturally, such a table can also be used for other equipment (for example, a circular saw or electric drill).

If you do not have a manual milling machine at your disposal, then this problem can be solved with the help of special devices that allow you to successfully perform milling on a serial lathe. Using a milling attachment for a lathe, you can significantly expand the functionality of serial equipment (in particular, use it to process planes, make grooves and grooves, and process various parts along the contour). It is also important that such a device for a lathe does not have a complicated design, and making it yourself will not be a big problem.

What can you do with a hand router?
By adding some homemade ones to the hand router
devices can be significantly expanded
possibilities. For example, making profiles on curly ones
details, or process the edges of round tabletops.
You can do a variety of operations with a hand router,
this is the passage of grooves including the dovetail,
production of tenons and sockets for furniture assembly.

And if you add to this a table on which the router is mounted in
inverted position, then you will get a universal machine for
many carpentry operations. Such tables are sold in stores, but
their price is quite high. In principle, making such a table is not so
and difficult. Let's take a simple option as an example.

What we have here, first of all you will need to make or select a base.
The base consists of legs with drawers and legs assembled. If anywhere
there is an old kitchen table lying around in the country house or garage, then the work will work
fast. And it’s easier to make a table like this yourself than a dining table
for home. Strength is the main thing, beauty comes second. Therefore, collect
the table can be mounted on screws, corners, bolts and other fittings.

The height of the table can be full, working, depending on your height
830-900 mm. . The table can also be a small tabletop device,
in this case, the height of the table is determined by the size of the router, plus the distance
for easy access and adjustment.

The table will need a worktop. Here we need to take into account some
factors. The table top should be level, this is worth paying special attention to.
attention. The material must be strong enough and resistant to abrasion.
You can use a good thick one to make a countertop.
plywood, at least 10-12 mm. , or better yet 20 mm. . MDF sheets are also suitable,
but such thick sheets rarely appear on sale. To me anyway
you have to special order them if necessary.

The dimensions of the tabletop depend on the work you are going to do.
on the router. But I have simple advice, don’t make the tabletop too big,
600/600 mm is quite enough. , however, this is approximate, it can be done
A bit more. The guide ruler can be secured with small clamps.

The router is attached to the table through a separate metal plate.
The plate is screwed from below to the base of the router using bolts, there is already
finished threaded holes. Next, mark and cut out on the tabletop
the opening is 20 mm smaller in width and length than the metal plate. .
Then with a hand router using a quarter cutter with a support bearing
we pass a quarter on the edges of the opening. The depth of the quarter should be
such that the router plate is level, flush with
tabletop. the router is installed into the table from above already with a fixed
plate. You need to make holes in the plate for fixing it in the table.

You can screw the router directly to the table; to do this, drill a hole for
cutter and tie bolts close to the edge of the table. Under the router platform we select
recess, otherwise the cutter will be too low and the adjustment possibilities will be
very limited. Mounting the router in this way in the middle of the table will be quite
problematic. Therefore, the option with a removable sole is more convenient.

That's all, the simplest version of the table for the router is ready. There is truth here
some inconvenience when adjusting the height. But further this table can be
improve, first of all, make a screw lifting mechanism.
Such a mechanism can be made entirely of plywood and wood. What am I like?
I’m thinking now, when it’s ready I’ll post photos on the site.
Article, additional to this topic.

This photo from the Internet shows the principle of operation of such
devices for cutting and processing round parts. Take it
a piece of dense sheet material, 6 mm plywood will do. or MDF. .
Drill holes for the router bit and installation bolts. Then you measure accurately
radius and set the axis. The axle can be made from a bolt with a diameter of 4-6 mm.
or just a self-tapping screw. A bolt is installed if it is necessary to process thick parts
large radius. Using a round tabletop, in the article
.

A hand router is used not only for processing edges, but also for passing profiles
according to the surface of the parts. A normal router also includes a special stop in the set
video clip. The roller is attached to a standard stop for processing parallel to the edge
profiles on the workpiece plane. The roller in the photo is double, it can be processed
internal profiles on figured parts. The principle is the same as with one stop,
only the profiles are more accurate, and the cutter will not jump from side to side
to the side. Manufacturing of other carpentry parts in the article.

Actually, whole books are written on working with a hand milling machine, and all the time
you can find something new.
Another article on the topic, there is a description of the
a simple way to mount the router in an upside-down position.