Doorbell Cover #1 - Project Design

I find project ideas in many different places.  Woodworking magazines and books are a great place to find project plans, I've got stacks of old ones in my workshop and the library has a good supply as well.  There are a couple of TV shows worth watching, such as New Yankee Workshop and Rough Cut.  However, most of my ideas come from the Internet.  I usually 'Google' around until I find something I like, then reproduce it in Sketchup before cutting wood.

I've been doing some painting in our house and one of the walls I painted had the doorbell that came with the house.  It was an ugly mirrored abomination that matched the rest of the decor that the house had when we moved in.  Since then we've gotten rid of just about all of the mirrored doors, the mirror fireplace and glass block wall, but this doorbell was still around.  Since I had to pull it down to paint the wall it was a good time to replace it.  Since I have a workshop full of tools, this would be a nice easy project to get back into woodworking after a long break.

But first, I needed a plan.  First, I Googled around for various doorbell covers, eventually settling on 'Craftsman Doorbell Cover' as my search :



I didn't find exactly what I wanted, but this image brought me to a Pinterest page full of doorbell covers and that's where I hit the jackpot.



The cover in the bottom right corner is my favourite, and after getting approval from my wife I was ready to go.

The website for the doorbell cover had a few more pictures of the doorbell.  I imported the front-on image into Sketchup and traced it to make my plan.  The existing doorbell could not be used, but I picked up an inexpensive doorbell from Home Depot and dismantled it to get the chime mechanism.  I measured that and sized the cover to match.  Here's what I ended up with :



For larger projects I'll make a full 3D model, going as far as to create all the joinery as well.  For this simple project I just made up this simple 2D image, and built from it.

Stool Build

Well, there's not much to this build post.  Once we had the plan, this was pretty straightforward. I sketched out the leg pattern, then cut four legs to size on the bandsaw.  Next I cleaned up the edges of the legs with a belt sander and put them to the side.

The legs attach to a round bottom, which then gets the lazy susan mounted to it, which supports the actual seat.  I briefly considered dove tailing the top of the legs, but decided to keep it simple and just leave them straight.  The round bottom got intersecting dados cut in it to receive the legs, I almost forgot to cut them before cutting the bottom round, but remembered just in time.



I cut both the seat and bottom round using a simple circle cutting jig on the bandsaw, then cleaned up the edges on my spindle sander.

The legs were secured to the round bottom with glue and 2.5 inch wood screws from the top.  I routed out the bottom of the seat to hide the lazy susan, then mounted it to the round bottom.  The last step was adding a stretcher on each side of the stool to tighten up the legs and provide a foot rest.  I put them at different heights to accommodate different sized guests.

I covered it with a wipe-on finish - Watco Danish Oil, natural.  Took a couple of days to dry, so it's probably time to toss that old container and get a new one.



And lastly, here's my helper trying it out :

Stool History

My first real job was as a computer technician.  I was in high school at the time and the computer shop in question was run out the owner's home.  This was before I had a license, and my Dad would drop me off and pick me up.  I worked there for a number of years, eventually buying both the business and the house when the owner was ready to retire.  After a year or two I decided business ownership was not for me and closed up the business and went back to working for someone else.  I got rid of just about everything from the business, but kept this stool.

Almost 25 years since I first started working at the computer shop, I've still got the same stool I used on my first day there.  I spent countless hours sitting on this stool, fixing and building computers.  Somehow this little computer shop managed to get the perfect stool.  It has three key features :

1. It's the perfect height
2. It's lightweight and indestructible 
3. The horizontal spacers are optimally positioned to act as a comfortable foot rest

So needless to say, I'm quite attached to this old stool,  I still use it every time I venture out to the woodworking shop.  Now my kids are getting to the age where they sometimes join me in the workshop and they have been 'stealing' my stool while we are out there together.  So one day I was out in the shop, sitting on the stool doing some sanding when my daughter came out to join me.  Naturally she needed the stool as well, so she could sit and draw at the workbench.  After a brief struggle she suggested I just make another stool.  

It seemed like a reasonable request, so I picked up the old stool, spent a bit of time measuring and got to work.  First, we glued up a seat blank out of some red oak :

Next, we cut some legs :

Here's where I started to scratch my head.  First, how was I going to attach the legs to the seat, second, how about those compound angles?  I decided to use my mortiser for leg attachment, but then the compound angles had my scratching my head for quite a long time.  Shortly thereafter I bailed on the idea of copying the stool and decided to go with a new design.  

We dug way back to June 2000.  Wood Magazine #124 had a stool that looked a little more like 1990 than 2000, but looked like it would do the job.  We'll drop the brass ring and luckily enough I have a lazy susan that's been kicking around my workshop for about ten years that finally be able to put to good use for the seat!