g'day folks uncle nakas here hey check out my snazzy new foldable step stool what an absolute little ripper i love it made from scrap wood and a couple of old hinges and for the total cost of 20 bucks i'm absolutely stoked and the handy bonus is is that if you don't want to use it as a step stool you can use it just as a stool or as an awesome home decor piece now by rights this should be a pretty simple project i'm just a bit concerned about how the whole folding mechanism is going to work and whether or not it's going to support my hulking adonis type physique don't wish to brag but back in the day now this is going to be a scrap wood project as per usual and for the seat all i'm using are these old scraps of hardwood flooring that i had left over from our house renovation and for the legs just some bits and bobs from a mangy old palette that i found on the side of the road let's get cracking now for your benefit i'm making two videos from the one project now this is a short version and the other one which i'll link to at the end of this video is the full-blown tutorial chock-a-block full of tips and tricks along with all the measurements and the angles and the dangles that you'll need to make this cracking little step stool so do yourself a favor it's well worth it now starting with the seat this is what we've got this is the underside and the boards are tongue and groove so they slot in together just like that and we'll glue and clamp these down a bit later on now the diameter for the circle for the seat is 320 millimeters which is a smidge larger than 11 and three quarters of an inch [Music] [Applause] right oh that's not coming apart anytime soon let's give it 24 hours to dry we'll come back tomorrow for stage two there you go that didn't turn out too bad at all a bit of a sand and a bit of a polish and i reckon this is gonna come up beautiful now i'll be cutting my circle out with my router complete with my homemade circle cutting jig but if you don't have this set up don't panic a jigsaw will do the trick [Music] nicely and let's see what we've got look at that a perfect circle beautiful now with the seat because it's old hardwood i found it a bit splintery and let's face it you don't want a splinter in your bum so all i did was pull out the old tin of epoxy i dug out all those nooks and crannies filled those in with the epoxy and we'll come back later and sand that back alrighty let's make those legs oh yeah before i forget just very quickly if you want to see more videos just like this one make sure you hit that subscribe and notification button down below good stuff now starting with the front two legs of the step stool fire up the old miter saw and cut those front stool legs to size [Music] speaking of stools have you ever wondered why a milking stool only has three legs i think it's because the cow has the udder or something like that yeah that's me alrighty i'll be off so the door is yep got it stop looking under control now with the back settled legs we're actually making a frame and like the front set of legs there's a few angles but here we're also adding some halving joints which should help tie and secure everything together beautiful now with those half lap joints all checked out you can see how when you check out half of that material and half of that material you finish up with a really smooth flat joint now we'll cut this excess off here and here later on but for now i want to give this a quick sand and then we'll come back to glue and screw together now if you're interested in following along with me with these projects you can find all the tools i use in this video linked in the description box down below [Music] so there's those back legs all done and i have to say they're looking pretty good now all we need to do now is to go back to those two front legs to cut the steps in now hopefully this tread should fit there you go that's beautiful spot on awesome so there's those front steps all done and dusted and i have to say i'm absolutely stoked in how they turned out now the next step this is what i've been concerned about the entire time and that is attaching the hinges and seeing whether this thing actually folds up or have i indeed wasted an entire weekend this is one of those times i wish i had a japanese saw and there you have it that looks pretty good i'm happy with that and there you have it that is a really nice round over [Music] love it now with the hinges i'm using these 75 millimeter or three inch strap hinges which are these guys over here now these are going to set you back about five bucks a set we'll need two sets so all up around ten dollars now one more quick job is we need to stop those legs from spreading apart and we also need those legs to work in unison so i've got this bit of flat bar metal flat bar and i'll cut two of these at 420 millimeters which is about 16.5 inches and i'll screw these to the legs of the step stool yeah i'm not quite sure about the 400 pound load capacity but it looks good and that's the main thing now there's one last job to do and that's to give this a couple of coats with a clear satin varnish and then come back for the two big tests will it hold my weight does it even fold or has this been an absolute total failure stay tuned [Music] right hey folks it's the moment of truth test number one does the step stool fold let's find out okay here we go i'm a little bit nervous now the principle is is to put your fingers through the grip at the front hold down at the back and then just lift and tilt and check that out that is awesome works like an absolute charm love it okay time for the big one test number two will this little fellow support my 220 pounds of 54 year old blubber let's give it a go step number one feels good there you go tick step number two sorry about the view i hope i don't fall off oh check that out what an absolute little ripper and i've got to say that is a big relief i'm happy with that now as well as being a very handy little step stool i have to say that as a stool itself it's actually very good and just between you me and the fence post it's really comfortable as well i think i need a beer after all that now as i promised earlier for the easy to follow step-by-step tutorial of this project click on my video over there and if you want to see more projects just like this one make sure you click on my favorite top three scrap wood projects which should be over there as well well worth a look and i hope to see you there shortly
