SketchUp: Half Lap Bar Stools - 165

this week I'm going to be making a barstool made from nothing but two-by-fours no mechanical fasteners so let's get going real quick I know my my overall size that I want so that's what I'm going to make first I'm going to make a rectangle on the red green plain and the dimensions say the first one is the longer and I know I want that one to be 18 comma 13 and I'm going 13 wide because that's the the widest that my planer will accept p4 push-pull and I want to go with a height of 24 inches enter now this cube box 3d rectangle all I want to do is just delete all the faces so I'm left with edges I just clicked and deleted all those now if I triple click on the edge the wireframe I guess you could call it g4 component enter now this gives me the freedom freedom n tional perimeter of my project from here I can draw the top of this so our four rectangle from this corner and I'm going to draw a rectangle of the dimension say the first one is the longest and I want to have a height of 1.5 inches comma 1 inch enter P for push-pull and I've already determined my length so I can just drag it to that back edge spacebar triple click G for component enter let's drop a little bit of color on here I like to distinguish all my parts with colors that way you can easily look at the contrast and see that they are individual parts m4 move control brings up copy and this is going to be somewhat like a cutting board it's going to be a multiple piece glue up for the top we're making this entire project out of two by fours so I'm copy one and I didn't click yet so I can say X 12 enter and that added 12 more to my original one which is 13 inches long 13 inches long from here I can make the legs and I know exactly where they need to be so our 4 rectangle and I'm going to draw a rectangle and then type in one point 5 comma 1 point 5 enter P for push-pull and I will pull it all the way to the bottom but the way that this is going to work is once the top is done I'm going to cut a rabbet in the top to accept the legs so I actually need to pull this up another 0.75 inches which should be at that midpoint I'm going to make all of my pieces first before I start to make any of the joinery so spacebar triple-click G for component enter and let's give this leg a color let's just drop green on it now I'm going to be doing some copying but I'm also going to flip so I have a left leg and a right leg so m4 move control brings up copy and I'm going to copy this to the other side but I don't want two left feet over here I want a right feet so I drove it along the right axis so I can right-click on it and say flip along components red now right now that did absolutely nothing but when I go to cut the half lap on this side it will update on the appropriate side for this leg so the same thing here let's click both of these m4 move control brings up copy and I'm dragging these along the green axis so let's right-click and say flip along the green direction now again that did not do anything as far as these square legs go but once we make our joinery it'll all make sense I want to connect this these two legs with a half flat piece so our four rectangle and let's just draw a rectangle on here the first dimension is the smaller one and that needs to be 1.5 so I can change that by pressing one point 5 comma and leaving the second dimension empty that way it only modifies the first one press the Enter key for push pull and I'll push this to the thickness of my legs which is a one and a half of one and a half inch square spacebar triple click G for component enter now let's drop some contrasting color on here and I want this to be six inches away from the bottom so T for tape measure let's go up 6 inches enter m4 move and let's grab this corner and just pull it up to that new line that I just made let's select this and delete it now I also want I'm going to copy this one at the backside but I also want one going from this leg to this leg so our four rectangle from here over to here the first dimension is the shorter of the two so I'm going to type in 1 point 5 comma enter to only modify the first one P for push-pull and let's push this to the back edge of the legs spacebar triple click G for component enter let's drop another color on here just any old color will be fine t for tape measure and I want this one to be just a little bit higher so let's see if it's inch and a half tall then let's put a half inch spacing between the two that means this will be at eight enter m4 move and let's move the top of this down to eight and I can delete this line so now I've got my two pieces that Oregon are going to connect the legs with no doing recut in them yet and to make sure everything is updated on the same side over here I could I can copy this over to here and then flip it and copy this over there and flip it but an easier way when you're dealing with symmetrical pieces such as this is to just draw a diagonal line from corner to corner and that gives me an exact center point so I can select this holding shift to select this cue for rotate let's go from the center point go from one side all the way over to the other but I want to leave the originals there and make copies so let's press ctrl for copy and drop them down now I can delete this line that it's no longer needed down here now what that did was it saved me from you know flipping left and right because I have left and right pieces and everything should update once I make all the joinery here I also want to have a half lap and a piece going here that will give me a long long grain to long grain glue connection as opposed to a small little end grain connection up here so let's grab both of these blue piece is m4 move they are already in the appropriate orientation so let's press control bring these all the way up bring the copies all the way up to the top right there so now the structure is complete I just need to add my joinery I no longer need this framework on the outside so I can select it and delete it and let's first make the let's first make the excuse me the rabbet on the ends of this this seat so let's right-click and say make unique you are no longer a copy same with you that way if I make any cuts into these two boards all of these are not going to update now let's double click to edit this part are for rectangle and let's make this rectangle P for push-pull let's chop this all the way to that back edge same with this once double click to edit this part are for rectangle and let's make this little rectangle P for push-pull let's push this all the way to the back edge now that made a rabbet along these two pieces now these two let's just go ahead and delete them it'll be the easiest thing to do and let's grab both of these actually you know what let's do that diagonal thing again l4 line from this diagonal over to this diagonal let's grab both of these q4 rotate along the midpoint of my diagonal you know go just like that pressing ctrl to bring up copy and there we go I think that's it so let's delete this line again now let's make any half-laps on our pieces what piece do we want to be on the top of our half left we want the horizontal piece or the vertical piece I want the horizontal piece so I'm going to cut away at the leg so let's double click the Edit this part are for rectangle and let's draw our half lap P for push-pull let's push it in half of the distance of 1.5 which is 0.75 enter now because I rotated all these parts and appropriate orientation all these legs then all of the tops updated on the right side let's do the same thing down here with this horizontal blue piece let's edit the leg r4 rectangle and I want to show the horizontal piece so let's cut away at the vertical piece P foot push poles push this in 0.75 inches enter and that looks good same thing with these purple pieces I want them to be visible on the outside so let's double click that at this part again our four rectangle from here to here p4 push poles push this in 0.75 inches enter now all of these should have updated properly and it looks like they have but it still looks a little goofy and that's because we didn't cut out anything on the horizontal pieces yet so let's edit this horizontal piece and if I want the front half to be shown that means I need to cut away the back half so our four rectangle this is half of the joint that lets people push pull let's push it in 0.75 inches enter let's go to this other side our four rectangle I just messed up and I pushed that in yep I only pushed it in 0.75 inches let's P Forbush po let's push this in again 0.75 inches I shouldn't want 1.5 from the beginning I will do that on this side now our four rectangle on the back side of this joint people push pulls push this in 1.5 enter and what I did here was updated here and now you can see the proper joinery of the half lap joint on these lower horizontal pieces let's do the same thing with these higher horizontal pieces let's double click to edit the part our full rectangle on the back side of the piece P for push-pull let's push this in 1.5 inches enter let's go to the other side our four rectangle from here to here p4 push-pull let's push this in 1.5 enter and that should have updated over here which it has it's a half lap joint make sure all of my jewelry looks okay and it does so this is the no mechanical fastener barstool this rabbit here on the top edge gives a nice wide long grain to long grain glue connection which will be very strong and not only this edge but also on this back edge as well on both of these leg assemblies now what you have to be worried about with using solid wood is obviously wood expansion and contraction well I'm going to make the top cutting board top whatever you want to call this with hopefully keeping all of the grain vertical so that the most expansion and contraction will be vertical and not horizontally but the reason why I only have runners down here on to this particular side and not up here like this one is on the sides is because even if this does expand contract this way this one single piece down here this horizontal piece will act as a pivot point so I'm going to exaggerate it a little bit what I'm saying is if the top shrinks then the leg will come in or just a little bit and if it expands it'll come out just a little bit and because I only have one horizontal piece going this direction of the left as a pivot point and the wood will Bend slightly as needed if I had another piece like this up here then it it let me go back to it I had another piece up here then both of these would prevent this leg from bending in or out so that's what I'm going to be banking on as far as this thing holding up over time I don't see any problems with this and hopefully it'll be fun to build now before I call it quits with this particular model I do want to make it a little bit more realistic as far as what I'm wanting to do with the final product I do want to soften up all of these edges and the way I'm going to do that is either a round over or a chamfer I'm not exactly sure yet but to represent it here I'm just going to use a chamfer however I do not want to mess up my original model here so let's copy all of this so select it all m4 move control brings up copy and I'm going to copy the entire project over here now it is a copy so what I do over here will be updated over here however it's still selected so what I can do is right click and say make unique this entire assembly is unique from this entire assembly now in the same instance as if you would do a single component but each one of these still remains a copy from one another so basically if I edit this part over here P for push-pull it's only going to update this particular barstool not this one so with the entire thing assembled with the entire thing selected you can make that whole copy unique from this whole copy hope that makes sense I don't want to modify this one because this gives me the exact measurements and the final edge detail really isn't that important as far as a plan goes so from here I can make all the adjustments that I want the easiest way to show the edge details just with a simple chamfer so let's edit this part r4 rectangle and let's make a half-inch chamfer so 0.5 comma point 5 enter whoops wrong the wrong plane there let's go 0.5 time 0.5 enter and that just basically gave me two points to connect here I can delete this other half P for push-pull and I push this all the way to the back edge that gives me a nice chamfer now to make a chamfer going this direction all I need to do is l4 line and make a horizontal line right there select this line m4 move and let's move this in the same distance as our chamfer which is 0.5 inches enter let's go to the other side and do the same thing l4 line making sure we stay constrained to the green axis let's select this m4 move and let's just push this in point 5 inches enter now from here I've already got my shape so all I have to do is edit the next part l4 line let's connect the dots p4 push-pull let's push this through spacebar double click that at the next part and repeat the process l4 line connect the dots p for push-pull let's push this all the way through we just have a couple more to do over here spacebar double click to edit the part l4 line let's trace this one more time P for push polls push this in all the way I think we've got a couple more on the other side yeah here we go spacebar double click to edit this part l4 line let's go from here to here P for push polls push this all the way in and the top is pretty much done let's do this outside edge on all four legs so kind of the same principle here let's double click to edit this leg let's select this vertical leg m4 move control brings up copying I'm going to copy this piece this line 0.5 inches enter select the original line and let's move it point 5 inches enter that just created a little chamfer right here well if I look down that chamfer I can just trace my line again just like I did previously let's double click to edit that part l4 line let's trace the champ for P for push-pull let's push it all the way let's spacebar double click that at the next piece l4 line here to here P for push polls push it again and just keep repeating the process all the way up to the top now because let's get out of here because this piece and this piece are copies I've already made this chamfer right here which means it updated right here let's go to the top and this is the only little tricky spot which it's not really too difficult at all let's double-click this part l4 line you just got to think of way that the way that this is going to end up if you do it in real life so let's p4 push poll let's push this all at the top and Sketchup says I can't go any further because I've got a point up here in the space and that will create some weird geometry so let's just l4 line to connect these dots here from this point up to here and if I go to the view where I can use a crossing to select all of the area plus the outside edges and just delete it then when I created this line and this line it actually created this face so now I can repeat the process over here let's double click to edit this part l4 line t4 push pull push this away spacebar double click the Edit the next part l4 line let's select that we'll drop a line there rather P for push pulls push this up and L for line you got to make these lines first if not then you'll lose all of these faces so let's spacebar use a crossing to only select that which is what we want to delete press Delete and there we go let's see if I missed anything the purple pieces on this other side let's double click L for line P for push pull and there we go I believe that's it that's a nice chamfered edge or you could use a roundover bit I'm not exactly sure which one I'll use but it's a greater representation as far as the end product goes but we can take that just a little bit further if we want and let's go to our materials or b4 Paint Bucket now let's change the colors to wood and let's first select all of this let's change it to wood and that's pretty much the color I'm going with we're not going to see all these harsh lines so let's select it all right click and say softened slash smooth edges now all of these are 45 degree angles and a couple 90 degree angles so if I was to go all the way past 45 and then past 90 things get kind of kind of soft obviously for soft and smoothing edges let's uncheck smooth normals and see what that does I guess you know that's okay and that is a little bit more accurate representation of how the barstool will turn out hopefully that's the game plan anyway anyway thanks for watching hopefully you found this useful then you guys have a great day