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Modern Barstools

author-gravatar Sean Oct 08, 2018

In my kitchen I have a 43" high kitchen island that's needed barstools since I moved in (over 7 years ago!). I decided to finally design and build a set. I started by drawing the chairs in sketchup and sending SVG files out to have templates made. This made the building process so much faster and more precise.

I made the barstools out of 8/4 cherry and was lucky enough to get both barstools out of on board. For the finish, I wiped on 3 coats of a semi-gloss wiping varnish, sanding in between coats using 320 grit sandpaper to remove the dust nibs. 

The seat and backreset were probably the toughest part of the project because they were made via bent lamination. I resawed 3/16" panels on the bandsaw to then throw them in the vacuum bag on top of my bending form to get the shape I wanted. I used plastic resin glue instead of regular wood glue because the resin glue dries hard.

To see how I made the barstools, check out the video below!


Photo of Modern Barstools
Photo of Modern Barstools
Photo of Modern Barstools
Photo of Modern Barstools
Photo of Modern Barstools
Photo of Modern Barstools
Photo of Modern Barstools
Photo of Modern Barstools

5 comments

@Timmy2Hands  said:

Wow, Sean, those look great.

Thank you, Tim!

Beautiful design/work - thank you for sharing. I wish I could download a plan.

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