Japanese Stools made with Stereotomy

TFG Heartwood School, 2024

In this 5-day class, students created a full-scale stereotomy drawing to solve for the layout for a splay-legged stool, compete with compound mortise-and-tenon joinery. Then we used hand-tools to cut all the joinery and finally assembled the stools with wedged through-tenons. This stool is a classic exercise in compound joinery for Japanese carpentry students. The legs are intentionally milled out-of-square into a parallelogram cross cross section to make the joinery work out neatly.

Heartwood students pose with their finished Japanese stools after stereotomy workshop with Ariel Schecter.
Legs for Japanese stool, assembled with splayed mortise and tenon joinery.
Heartwood student kneels next to his completed Japanese stool made with stereotomy.
Stereotomy drawing of stool from Ariel Schecter's class at the Heartwood School of the Timber Framers Guild.
Stool parts laid out and ready for cutting at Ariel Schecter's stereotomy class at TFG Heartwood School.
A Heartwood student test fits the joinery in his Japanese stool at the TFG Heartwood School.
A student poses in front of his stereotomy drawings and finished parts, ready to assemble his Japanese stool at the Heartwood School.
A womany carpenter kneels and cuts mortise and tenon joinery at TFG Heartwood School stereotomy workshop.
Colored stereotomy drawing for Ariel Schecter's Japanese stool workshop at TFG Heartwood School.
A completed Japanese stool with splayed legs and wedged mortise and tenon joinery, made with stereotomy at the TFG Heartwood School.
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