Eleven months ago, two planemakers decided to each build a scrub plane simultaneously and share progress pictures along the way. It was later dubbed the Scrub Plane Build-Off. The two planemakers were Scott Meek and I.
The Inspiration
On Saturday, I was tidying up in the shop and noticed that my shop stool was in sad shape. I bought it many years ago from a department store and, while it has served me well, I’ve never been entirely happy with it.
I took a picture and announced that building a replacement would likely be the first live build of the new year.
Neil Cronk shared a photo of his very similar-looking stool, which he was also eager to replace, apparently.
I proposed that we have a shop stool build-off and before long, a handful of other woodworkers agreed to join us.
The Shop Stool Build-Off: Saturday January 25
The idea of this build-off is to have a group of woodworkers simultaneously build a shop stool and share pictures along the way. I plan to share my progress on Twitter and Facebook through my Tumblr page. I encourage you to join me and build and share your own shop stool on January 25.
There are no rules. You can work from plans or you can design on the fly. You can use complicated joinery or simply cut a tree stump to an appropriate height. You can start with rough lumber, pre-milled boards, or even steel. One great thing about a shop stool is that the design possibilities are endless and the pressure to do the finest work isn’t there (at least for me).
The official start is Saturday, January 25th at 8 am Pacific (that’s 8 am for me, 10 am for Jim in Wisconsin, 11 am for Anthony in Ottawa and Rusty in New Jersey, noon for Neil in Nova Scotia and 4 pm for Jamie in the UK.), but if you wish to participate, you don’t have to start at that time. I hope to finish my stool in one day, but the build-off will carry on through Sunday if required.
After the stools are complete, I would like to share everybody’s work here on my blog. I’m really excited about the Shop Stool Build-Off!
Links:
Sculptural Woodwork by Chris Wong 
Count me in!
Awesome, Mike! Will you be sharing your progress on social media? Feel free to share this post on your blog, too.
Chris
I will do my best to do that. I’m trying to get my blog going on a much more regular basis. I have trouble stopping for pictures, but I’m really going to make an effort for this project. I will post on twitter, Facebook, and my blog. I’m really looking forward to this!
Thanks Chris! Great project idea – should be interesting and a ton of fun…
Anthony,
You know I’m looking forward to it!
Chris
Worse than you,I have 4 of those stools! I’m in for this, it’ll fit right after a couple big projects and before vacation. I’ve already got 3-4 design directions to go. Perhaps in the weeks leading up to the build, some design concepts could be shared to spark ideas and avoid the “doh! I should have thought of that!”
Jeremy,
This will be a lot of fun. I’m already planning a post full of pictures for inspiration. You can send any that you have my way if you like.
Chris
I’m game. I might be at work that day, if so I’ll go with my own timeline. Paul Sellers was talking about a shop stool not too long ago, and it has had me thinking about one. I haven’t had one since I threw out my IKEA model a couple years ago. It will be fun to see how much participation this gets and the cool ideas everyone comes up with!
Excellent, Brian! I wonder if we can get Paul Sellers to join us.
Chris
Oh crap… Well i guess I am going to push off some of my projects if I can. Count me in.
I will try and participate as well. Will there be a Twitter hashtag associated with the build?
-Eric
Eric,
Excellent! There will be other posts here with more information and inspiration. The official hashtag is #SSBO.
Chris