38VIDEO Securing the Footstool Top

In the previous video, we joined the legs and cross piece together

and we've got some decisions to make now again as we get ready to fasten the top

but something interesting has happened here. Usually, if something isn't quite right, it gets worse as you go along in the project

unless you take action to correct it. But here, we've got something that's automatically gotten better

If you remember, when everything was just sitting here, there was quite a bit of rocking of the top

and I was going to show you how we fixed that. But since everything's buttoned up, there's no more rocking

Isn't that great? We still will have some other errors to steer back onto the road and to correct

but for now, let's just get busy. The challenge ahead of us is pretty much similar to what we did before

So we need to locate where the screws are going to go, measure distances so they look nice

We need to drill the hole for the screw to pass through the top

and then we need to drill smaller holes so that the screw will grab in the legs

So, first decision. If you look here at the plans, you see we've got three screws on each end

That's a fair amount over a 9-inch width. So, three screws would look like this

I don't think it's too much. I mean, visually speaking, it's certainly going to be strong enough

But you know, two screws would be strong enough, too. The reason I'm not going to go with two, though, is because of a little issue here

We've seen it before, but can you take a look there? The cup of this board has caused a gap here

I think we can get rid of most, if not all, of that, but it's going to take a screw in the middle in order to do it

You might think, well, is that one screw in the middle enough? You know, if we just did the one screw in the middle

I'd say no. It would probably hold together okay, but it's going to kind of look funny to have just the one screw there

It's not going to be as strong as it should be. So, we'll go with three, and now we have to draw some lines

Basically, we want the top to be centered on the legs, and these front edges flush

That's what we're shooting for. So, how do we do that? Well, step one is to determine how much total overhang of the top there is in relation to the legs

What do we have here? We're showing one inch and a half, and then one eighth

So, the difference between this big-ish line and this not-so-big-ish line here is an eighth

So, that's one and five eighths. I can work metric or imperial

I like imperial because it's got a little more personality to it

and it's also very easy to split imperial measurements in half. So, let's just take the one inch

One inch split in half is half an inch. Five eighths of an inch, that's sort of the rest of the measurement

You split a fraction in half by doubling the denominator, by doubling the number at the bottom

So, five eighths turns into five sixteenths. So, we've got half plus five sixteenths, and that should be our amount of overhang on each side

So, that's the half there. Where are we? Right here. That's the half

So, I'm going to put it there, and then I'm going to move it over five sixteenths from there

So, that's one sixteenth there, two sixteenths, three sixteenths, four sixteenths, five sixteenths

So, right there is where I think it should go. That's how we split the difference

Now, I'm not going to trust myself, if you remember, multiple layers of safety

So, slide this over here. Now, we go over to the other side, and we check the same thing, and we find it's very, very close

Very close indeed. Actually, it depends on where we are along there, but there

I think that's pretty much perfect. Yep, it is. Functionally perfect. Not absolutely perfect, but functionally perfect

And now, I'm going to just make sure that these edges are flush

So, the legs and the cross piece are exactly where we want them on the top

and I'm just going to trace this out here. Voila

So, remember we're going to do three screws, and it's a great idea to lay that out with the top upside down like this

because we can see the lines, there'll be no surprises, and no guesswork

So, our decision at this stage is to determine exactly where the screws are going to go

And once again, the combination square will help us. The middle screw is easy, because the middle screw is just in the middle

And if you remember, nine inches wide, well, that's a little bit less than nine

So, we get four and a half, and then a little bit less than four and a half, and lock it

Very close to being centered there

Okay, now, what do you think? Where will we go

Well, I think an inch is a little too close to the edge

Two inches is probably too far from the edge. An inch and a half might be nice

It's the same dimension as the thickness of the top, so I think that's going to look just fine

Let's adjust our combination square to one and a half inches. And we just go all around

You see how useful this thing is? This thing is very useful for marking

The only thing we have to determine right now is how far from the ends of the boards we're going to drill

So, we want to be in the middle of the legs, so that would be an inch and a half

So, we're going to go about three quarters of an inch or so

Actually, you know what I'm going to do? I don't know if you can tell, but you see how this is curved a bit

That's because of the cupping in the legs. But if you think about it, all I really want is to see a nice straight line of screws on the top

It doesn't really matter if the screws deviate a little bit from center in the edge of the legs

What matters more is how this looks on that side. So, what I'm going to do, I'm just going to take this measurement here, referenced as it is from the edge of the board

and I'm just going to apply it across the board, so that we have a nice straight line of screws

It should work out just the same. It should work out just the same on this side

Actually, that's a little off-center from that. That's a better one there

Great. This is the smaller of the drill bits, the one that does the root diameter of the screw

It's not big enough for this application, so we put the bigger one in

The one that's just a smidge over a quarter of an inch, which is the diameter of the screws

Just to make sure that our drill bit doesn't dance around and start going down in the wrong place

I'm going to make a little dimpled mark. There we go

Now for some drilling. Can you see? I'm lining up my eye with the drill bit here

I'm lining it up so I can see whether I'm square in this direction

and I'm also taking a look from the side to make sure I'm square in this direction

It's not critical that it be absolutely right, but I do have to be conscious about it

because it's very easy to drill at quite an angle if you're not paying attention

There we go. Okay, next step is to repeat that procedure that you saw before

where we put in some screws and tap them down in order to mark the top of the legs

but there's a bit of a detail here that I need to alert you to

I have the six structural screws in place, and I'm going to give them a tap here with this

but something you have to understand. It's very important that the top not move in relation to the legs until I've marked all six screws

If I mark a couple of them, and then the top shifts, and then I mark the rest of them

well, they're not going to be aligned with each other relative to the holes that I'm going to drill

So it's very important that I keep this solid, not let it move

I don't have to really hit this hard. That should do it

Okay, and there we have our marks. Now, I have made a mistake

I have made a mistake, and it's the kind of mistakes that nobody ever completely avoids making

no matter how much experience they have. So this is another chance for a teaching tangent

You will make mistakes. You will make big mistakes at first. And as time goes on, and as you put more effort and time into it

your mistakes will be smaller and less important. But you will never completely avoid making mistakes

because you can't always see the end from the beginning. And the mistake I made was over here

Remember, I told you, this is a new design. I've designed this little footstool for this course

And my arbitrary decision about where that screw goes put this screw too high

because what happens is, this screw here is going to go down far enough

and it's going to hit this. So it's not going to be able to go down all the way

What can I do about that? Well, this is a valuable teaching moment for you

because this is the kind of thing you're going to run into all the time. You need to be flexible, and you need to say

okay, how can I solve this problem in the simplest way possible? Now, I guess I could take this out and move it down

but now I have a big ugly hole here. We can't have that

I could make new legs, but that would be a real drawback

That would set us back a lot, since we're making good progress here

What does that leave me with? Well, what I'm going to do in this case, and I'm going to be happy with this

is I'm just going to trim off a little bit of the center screw, the central screw

I will just shorten it a little bit, so that there is enough room

But for now, I'm not going to worry about that. Now I'm just going to drill the hole, like this one we did before

I'm going to take out the bigger twist bit, and I'm going to put in a smaller one here

I'm sure I want to make it a little deeper than that. Drilling hole

See how that drill bit is not going down all the way? I'm hitting the metal

I'm hitting the metal, but that's okay. We'll fix that. Notice how this hole is a little closer to that face than, say, this one

That's because, as I said before, the board is cupped. What matters is that they're all in the same line with each other

That's the thing that really matters. I hit that screw again. Actually, I kind of skirted it a bit

I'm past it on that side. The bit must have just grazed one side of the shank of the screw

I may not need to trim that screw any shorter. We're ready for assembly

but we're actually ready for me to show you how I'm going to solve another problem

This is sort of the kind of problem you're going to run into with all sorts of projects

It has to do with that gap, because the top is cupped

How would I deal with that? There's different ways I could deal with it

One way I could deal with it is to use a hand plane

and plane a little bit off here and here, but not in the center

so that I basically make the bottom of this board flat, even though the top is still curved. I could do that

I would have to reduce the thickness of the top by maybe that much

which is a fair amount. I don't think I want to make it look any thinner

Another option, I guess, is I could... This would be kind of challenging

I could reduce the length of the legs here at the top

so basically make them a little bit curved to match the curve of the cupped board

That's an option, too, but tricky and machine-dependent. What I am going to do is I'm going to shorten this screw so that I can drive it

These screws are powerful enough that they may be able to suck the top down flat

to get rid of that cup shape. It's possible, but I'm not sure

The thing is, if I try and the screw can't do it

it means the screw is chewing up the wood that the threads were biting into

and that screw is not going to grab any more at all. I'm going to hedge my bets a bit, and I'm going to use a clamp

I'm going to use a clamp to try to pull this down flat, to get it flat before I drive the screw

I think those two things together will work for me. Let's just do a little dry run. That's another thing about woodworking

You always have to test. Just because you have an idea that you think is going to work doesn't mean it actually will

Let's see if we're good. Can you see the gap there? That's tight there. Still a little bit of a gap there

Try this again on the other side. Pretty good. I think I can do better with a stronger clamp

But before I try to grab that stronger clamp, I just want to point out

clamps are a big part of woodworking. Erwin Quick Grip. This is a unique style of clamp

I would say it delivers moderate clamping pressure, but it's in a very convenient package, because you can push this trigger

and you can slide for any size you want. And then when you get it to the size you want

then this squeeze handle takes over, and you can squeeze it, and it draws in, as I said, a moderate amount of pressure

But for this job, I think we want a large amount of pressure

So I'm going to go get a more powerful clamp, and I'm going to shorten a screw, and then we're going to give this a try

So as you can see, I've shortened this screw on my grinder

You could have just used a shorter screw, too. A slightly shorter screw. I didn't happen to have one of this kind

It was just a little bit shorter, so I ground it off

Grinding machines aren't really a typical part of woodworking, but it is nice to be able to turn to them from time to time

Now, the more powerful clamp. We're going to do this side first

and take a look at how this pulls down. Just watch the gap here

Now that's not acceptable. That's too much of a gap. So... Did it get smaller? It sure did

I think that's quite acceptable now. And we're flush on both sides, so let's drive that shorter screw in first

and then we will drive the other ones. I'll take the clamp off. Everything should just stay this way

Then we'll flip things over and do the other end. Now it's starting to get tight

I'm hoping that it pulls it down even more. Let's take a look. Even if it doesn't, that's okay

I don't think it's pulled it down anymore, but it's plenty tight

And now we will do the other ones. Flip things over, and then tighten up the other side

Let's pull down pretty good. I think I might be able to get a bit more

Maybe if I had another clamp of the same kind on this side

I'll just take my clamp rack and get that. The thing about woodworking is, you're going to need a lot of clamps

Just a few at first are helpful, but keep building your clamp collection

There's a saying amongst woodworkers, you never really have enough clamps. I've got a lot of clamps. I don't usually run out of clamps

for bigger projects, but sometimes I do. So you kind of have to get used to that

Get ready to buy some clamps if you're going to stay into woodworking

A little bit more with that, so we're in good shape. I'm going to tighten up the screws

One thing about screws in woodworking is that you have to develop a feel

for how to tighten them. It's very possible to over-tighten screws and to have them strip out in the hole

There's only so much pulling that the threads can do on the wood fibers

before it starts to slip. The way you know that is, as you tighten up the screw

if it stops getting progressively tighter as the head comes down on the wood, if it stops getting progressively tighter

as you continue to tighten it, you know you've reached the limit

of what that screw can do in that hole. So you don't want to tighten it anymore

With a wrench like this and the leverage that it affords me

I could easily strip out these screws. I could tighten them too tight

the threads would lose their grip on the wood fibers, and then we would have a significantly weaker joint

It would still be stronger than nails. Now's the time when the feel comes in

It's not getting any tighter, so I'm not going to tighten any more, but it's as tight as I want it to be

It's flush. And then we'll take a look at what we've got

Okay, there we have a functional footstool. And it's even actually pretty stable

Let's see what it feels like on the floor. A bit of a wobble there. Now that could be because of the floor, or it could be

because of the stool. So you see, these two sides are high, and the stool is pivoting

on these two corners. If it's the stool, it should be the same when I flip it around

If it's the floor, it'll be opposite. So let's see. Still the same

So, in the next video, I'm going to show you how to fix that

so that your stool is nice and stable