kitchen helper stool
(lively funk music) marc - kids seem to have endlessamounts of energy and curiosity, and one of the ways that weharness that with our son is to bring him into the kitchen and let him participate indaily cooking activities. and he loves cooking. so normally he's on astep stool or on a chair, but i thought i could do something a little bit better than that,
and that's what this is all about. it's basically a glorified kids step stool with some safety features added to it. now if you look aroundyou might find these under the name kitchen helper, which is what i like to call it, you might also find learning towers. and there's a lot ofcool designs out there. they're very utilitarianand they get the job done.
but the one thing theyall seem to have in common is they're not very pretty. and if this is something i'm gonna keep in my kitchen every day, and i gotta look at it all the time, i'd like something that's aelegant piece of furniture, but also has the functionalityand the safety features that i need for my son. so, that's what we came up with here.
arts and crafts designwith a decent hardwood, it happens to be cherry, but you can use any wood you like. knock-down joinery so we can take it apart if you need to. and it's something thatreally grows with the child. you start at the highestlevel and work your way down. and if you've got multiplekids at different heights, you can accommodate all of them.
so you got this little platform here that simply slides in and sits down on the rails. and that's pretty much it. now let's talk a littlebit about the joinery and how we actually make it. each side of the learning tower comes off and you've got this one piece unit. this is a frame that's glued together,
does not come apart. but you can see it's nice and flat so it would be easy to store. this is connected to the other side via the horizontal rails, and that's where theknock-down joinery comes in. let me show you the details. so what we've got here are two tenons, and then a knock-down joinery
with a threaded insert here in the middle. basically, the tenons gointo mortises in the sides. there's a hole drilled, and that hole is big enough to take a bolt that goes all the way through. and that bolt goes intothis threaded insert. so between the twomortise and tenon joints, and the threaded insert, this is a really strong joint
that just happens tobe able to come apart. now you can see i use domino joinery here because it's quick, it's easy, and i can feel goodabout the work that i do even though it's fast. if you don't have a domino joint, or consider using dowels. traditional dowels will work really well in this application.
and if you want a permanent solution, you could always use pocket screws to connect these things. now when using the domino or even dowels, the joinery tends to go pretty quickly. so once your stock is milled up, you sort of point and shoot, and things get assembled. so, hold onto your butts.
all of my stock gets milled up at once, jointing one face, one edge, (machine whirring) and then planing to 3/4of an inch in thickness. using a stoplock, i cut the parts to length at the chop saw. (saw whirring) the platform is 16 and3/4 of an inch wide,
so i'll glue-up a few boardsand get the width i need. i like to add glue toboth sides of the joint when i do a panel glue-up. i start with three clamps, trying to keep the boardslevel with one another. i then add two more clampsfacing the other way to help balance the pressureand prevent cupping. you can also use apiece of scrap as a caul to help keep the panel flat.
now to cut some joinery. i find it easiest to put layoutmarks on all of my pieces based on the dimensionsprovided in the plans. once you have your legs laid out, simply line up your other legs and transfer those marks. no need to measure multiple times. i could then lineup my various parts, and strategize theplacement of the joints.
your placement will obviously vary depending on the typeof joinery that you use. now i'll make all ofmy domino mortise cuts. the domino works like a router, making small mortisesof precise dimension. and to be honest, it's kind of likewoodworking on easy mode. with the special attachment, i can make the cuts intothe narrow divider safely.
let's do a quick test fit. that looks pretty good to me. some of the mortises need togo into the face of the board, and for those i'll use my bench vice to hold the piece securely. now the rear bottom railis located further in from the edge than the other rails, so i can't use the domino's fence. instead i'll use a thinpiece of scrap as a fence
and plunge right intothe face of the board. the four front and back rails will each receive aknock-down bolt on each side. i'll drill a hole through the legs between the two mortises. the hole should be large enough for the bolt to travel through unhindered. be sure to use a backer board to help prevent tear out on theother side of the workpiece.
and drill all the holesfor a total of eight. now we need to do a dry assembly so that we can locate the holes in the adjoining rails. the rail receives a threadedinsert to accept the bolt, so i'll use the insert itself to help me set the depth of the drill bit. by the way, this is thesame bit that we used to drill the previous hole in the side.
drill all eight bolt locationsbefore disassembling again. each front and back railshould now have a starter hole which we'll widen using a13/32nds of an inch bit. threaded inserts don't work as well in end grain as they do in face grain, so this slightly widerhole makes it easier for me to thread the insert inwithout damaging the board. the key here is to keep theinsert as straight as possible as it cuts its way down into the hole.
now back the insert out and add some epoxy to the hole. my hope is that the epoxy will help lock the insertin place permanently, reinforcing its hold in the end grain. feel free to drizzle someepoxy around the insert, too, just for good measure. just be extremely carefulnot to get any epoxy into the inner threads.
by the way, if your epoxyisn't as thin as mine, you should try west systems, it's a great epoxy for woodworkers. now let's cut the taper in the legs. i draw the taper twoinches in from the top down to the outer corner of the bottom. i'll cut as close to lineas i can at the bandsaw, and then clean up the edge at the jointer. (jointer whirring)
the top of each leg gets adecorative rounding as well, and i'll use a little circletemplate to mark it out. it's not much material so alittle sanding does the job, (sander whirring) all of the large horizontalrails receive a curve, so i'll measure up 3/4 of an inch at the center of each board, and then trace the shapeusing my drawing bow. the cuts are made at the band saw.
(band saw whirring) and a flexible sandingstrip does the final shaping and smoothing of the curves. now we can do some assembly. the side assemblies willbe glued permanently, so i'll do one at a time. the side rails and dividers are glued into one leg first, and then the other leg is added on.
(mallet tapping) to apply even clampingpressure to the angled edges, we'll need some angled cauls. the cutoff pieces fromthe previous taper cuts are perfect for this. they'll both cancel out the taper angle while also protectingthe cherry from denting. once the glue is dry, i give the side assemblies a nice sanding
to even out the jointsand smooth the surface. now for the rails withthe knock-down joints we have to do somethinga little bit different. we'll glue the tenons into the rail only. the other side of the tenon will stay dry so that the kitchenhelper can be disassembled in the future. even though they're dry, these tenons will stilllend an incredible amount
of strength and stabilityto the structure. for the rest of the construction, we'll want to have this thing assembled, so let's test out those knock-down joints. as the bolts are tightened, the whole stand becomes incredibly sturdy. well, now we can cut our platform to size. and this is one of those things you wanna do later on in the project
because cumulative errorand just little mistakes that you make here and there could result in thedimensions being different than the plan. so this is something wewanna cut after the fact. just take measurements andmake sure it's pretty close. if it's different from the plan then you make the adjustment. i'll use my crosscut sledto cut the panel to size
and square it up. now i cut my platformabout a 1/8th of an inch less than the opening, and that should makeit a little bit easier to slide this guy in place. there we go. with the platform cut to final size, i mark the length on the trim pieces and cut them to final length.
since the trim creates a half inch lip above and below the panel, i'll use some half inch thick strips to prop the panel up for gluing. this long grain glue joint really doesn't need anyadditional reinforcement to do it's job. (gentle guitar music) and now for the support cleats.
some of these will get a nice taper which is mostly for looks, but it also provides alittle bit of extra headroom when sliding that platform in and out. each cleat gets a nice round-over before being attached to the dividers. i'm only putting glue on thecleat side for convenience, so i add a little bit extra. i place the cleat so it'sflush with the side divider
and butts up against the front divider. a piece of scrap prevents dents, and a quick clamp holdseverything together while i bring the big boy clamps in. all six cleats are attached the same way. right, so the fit is pretty snug. if you think you're gonnamove this around a lot, maybe you have multiple kids so you're gonna change levels a lot,
you may trim it downjust a little bit shorter to make it easier to pull in and out. for me, i've got one kid, and i don't anticipatemoving this very often. the fit that i have is pretty good. now we do have to talkabout a safety issue here. when you're climbing up on this side, it tends to want to lift up the front, so we do need to add something
to prevent that from happening. and i think some dowelpins should do the trick. they'll be removable, but while they're in place it'll be nice and secure. and we'll drill those later. but for now, i wanna grab a pencil, and i wanna mark the locations so i can get that dowel pin registered
in just the right spot. so i marked out each level, and now we can disassemble,drill the holes, and do some finishing touches. (drill whirring) i love using this tiny routerfor things like round-overs. (router whirring) for the front and back rails and dividers, i'll use the router table.
anything i couldn'treach with the router bit gets hit with some sandpaper. and of course a finalsanding with 220 grit. before calling it done,i'm adding a few screws to each cleat for extra reinforcement since the cleats bear most of the weight. now finishing this projectis gonna be a piece of cake because the parts don'thave to go together yet. it's sort of like pre-finishing
so everything is nice and flat. so it's gonna be supereasy to apply the finish. now what finish do you use? well, you've got a decision to make. a piece like this isgonna get used and abused. kinda like your workbench, right? so when you have somethingin that situation you have two choices. you either protect the heck out of it
with a thick film finish, or you go the other way and you provide a little bit of protection but something that's a veryeasily renewable finish. so for this, i'm gonnago with a danish oil. danish oil is an oil-varnish blend, there's a little bit of varnish in there, that's gonna provide some protection. but, if it gets dinged and scratched,
which it surely will, all i have to do is sanda little bit, clean it up, and then wipe on some new finish and it should be good to go. now, the danish oil i'm gonna use is actually watco teak oil. it's an outdoor formulation of danish oil, and the reason i'm usingit is because i've got it and i don't feel like goingout and buying something else
when this stuff will actuallywork for this project. but normally the watco danish oil is perfectly fine for this, alright? so really easy to apply. i'm just gonna get a ragand we'll get to work. i always pour my finishesinto a secondary container in order to limit the amount of time the original can is open. it also prevents contamination,
which is always nice. there are a few differentschools of thought for applying an oil-varnishblend like this. my preferred method isto apply it sparingly, rubbing it aggressively into the surface. the following day i apply a second coat. and this goes on easierand spreads much faster, but i'm still wiping it on very thin. the following day i give the entire piece
a light buffing with a2,000 grit sanding pad, making it smooth as silk. now for the final assembly. it can be tricky to get all those tenons into their mortises, but with a little bit of patience they all hit home. alright, this looks pretty good. now, the finish is easily repairable.
if we get a ding or ascratch at some point, we could just come back withsome fine grit sandpaper, remove the scratch or blemish, and then just come back witha little bit of danish oil, rub it in nice and light, reapply it, let it dry, and bring it back in the house. and you might be wondering at this point, how strong is knock-down joinery?
knock-down joinery isn'tsomething i do very often. most times i want my furniture to stay together forever. this is something that the knock-down just kind of makes sense. so how strong is it, right, 'cause there's no gluein some of those joints. so i don't know. if it can hold me,
i think it will be okay. now wait a minute, i'm gonna take my shoes off. alright, here we go. there's probably a better way to do this. how about i just go over the top? (sighs) so clearly it can supporta decent amount of weight, but what about wracking forces?
right, if you push sort of, imagine collapsing thisthing on a diagonal, push that way, there'sno movement whatsoever. alright, there's enough supportthere with the four rails that there's absolutelyno wracking going on. this is nice and strong. so let's take it in the house and let the kid have a test run. (lively pop music)
- [mom] whoa. (kid muttering) put that in there. no, we only need one. - only need one. (kid mumbling) - [mom] hold on tight. (whisk whirring) (kitchen helper rattling)
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