Stool

 

 This stool was made for my kitchen counter, to take advantage of the best natural light in my house.  It has a black walnut seat, douglas fir legs and black locust rungs.  The exercise in this piece was to use only hand tools.  I did, admittedly, end up using a power drill to make holes in the seat for the legs to fit into...

I gouged out the bottom of the black locust seat which left nice radiating tool lines.  The bottom of the seat is still a bit wet with oil in this photo.

I used a scraper on the top of the seat and absolutely no sand paper on the whole project.  I have never enjoyed sanding, because once you start you have to make a uniform finish on the whole piece.  I try in every way to reduce particulate matter dust.  The wood dust is an irritant, but the aluminum oxide dust from the abrasives are what I believe cause lung problems in the long term for crafts people.

On another note a have a strong affinity for a knife edge finish.  One relies on sharp tools and skills instead of covering up mistakes.  Mistakes are inevitable and reveal that the work was made by hand, not by a 3d printer or a robot...