What follows is respectfully submitted for publication in your upcoming April Issue.
April 1, 2007
Address Withheld
(Specific magazine name removed because they all seemed too tight-assed to even respond...):
To whoever may be moved to help me:
After years of renting we are finally buying a house. In place of a rented house with a packed garage workshop, and a bedroom that has been my wife’s art studio, The New Place has not only a house. It has a big Barn with a slab floor and a second story to house both a spacious workshop and studio. Potential projects for the shop and house abound - furniture, built-ins, storage units, shop cabinets. The list seems endless.
So to what better end, I figured, could these woodworking opportunities be channeled than making something simple, enduring, and useful, as the first creation from the new shop? It didn’t need to be massive, or take thousands of hours to make. I needed a simple, inexpensive project that could be made of quality hardwood - like oak - that we could both use with pride and confidence.
What better way can you imagine to make a new place truly your own than by installing your own toilet seats. No worries about lingering germs, errant spores, or viruses. It’s a clean break with all that has passed before you arrived. And while you’re at it, imagine making your own. Home Depot has hardware kits, and even the expensive, commercially made oak seats aren’t that costly. Besides, now that I’ll have room to actually use the ‘portable’ planer, I could even custom tailor the thickness…maybe use crotch wood…the possibilities seem endless.
I thought this would be no problem - a quick trip to the woodworking magazines’ online indexes would yield plans out the butt. Imagine my dismay. Toilet paper holders – hundreds; towel rack plans – plenty; medicine cabinets – what style would you like?; Toilet seat plans??? Sorry, your search shows you to be SOL.
Undaunted, I decided I’d design my own. I mean, after all, we all know how they work, and more or less how they’re made. And if it proved to be an endless design process, there is always copying as the means to an end.
The first aspects of the project were so easy; they could almost be considered self-evident. Countless examples of appropriate size, shape, and basic dimensions surround us. The part of the project where I hit a bump in the road was when I started considering alternative methods for the joints.
Butt joints seemed to not be what they’re cracked up to be – especially for this application. Saddle joints have been around for centuries and hold promise. Dovetails seemed logical until I tried to figure out where the pins and tails went. Dowel movement might complicate the design. Mortise and tenon joints look like good candidates, but planing the cheeks for a tight fit before gluing, frankly, scared me. Haunched tenons are supposedly stronger than regular ones. Biscuit joints are out of the question. Splined miters might be strong, but the end result looks way too much like a picture frame.
That’s why I’m writing you folks in the woodworking press - I need your help. Break some new ground, publish some toilet seat plans. Get the drop on those prima-donnas at Fine Woodworking and give them a run for their money
I hesitated to ask for fear that you might generate a firestorm of opinions buttressed with facts and years of power and hand tool expertise. I can picture Frank Klausz and Ian Kirby having a toilet seat shootout – old world tradition versus modern day practicality. And I can imagine Kirby digressing about how the studied application of grooves around the perimeter lend the seat subtle gradations of light and shadow in the afternoon sun. But you editor types can keep them focused.
Other suppliers and experts may need to be consulted. Does Lee Valley make special tools for shaping the contours? Does Brian Boggs have specialized chair seat experience he’ll share with us? Is an air-driven rotary shaping tool in the cards? Can I make the big hole with a fly cutter, or should I stick to the router table and a template bit? Do I need a wider planer?
Please don’t forget to address the other critical issues – splinter free finishing, wrinkle free finishes, water or oil based, scraping to minimize tear-out, and of course, any ripping techniques that might be pertinent for stock preparation.
I’m sure you can come up with something. It doesn’t have to be an argument among experts. Just a simple toilet seat plan. You might attract a wider readership from some of our boating enthusiasts if you entitled the article “Cool Heads Prevail”
The closing date on the house is less than a month away, and I’m paralyzed with indecision. The voices in my head are telling me It’s time to get off the pot and appeal to the experts. Please help.
Sincerely,
Name withheld out of sympathy
P.S. This all started because I had a passing interest in butt hinges.
