Week 5 Computer-Controlled Machining Personalized Kitchen Counter Stool

For this week's project, I decided to make a personalized, kitchen counter stool for my girlfriend so we can have the option of eating dinner right in the kitchen instead of the dining room. Her family name starts with the letter "R" so I decided to use that as the shape of my design. The stool was designed for the height of the "R" to be 2 ft. The idea is to cut out about two dozen of these from 0.45 in thick wood and glue them together. I managed to fit five of them in a single 4 ft x 4 ft cutting area, leaving 2 inches along all edges for screws to hold the wood, and 1 inch between the nearest cutting lines.

So I managed to put 12 pieces together instead of 24. It required a lot of sanding off the edges of the Shopbot cut to make things smooth for glueing. I used wood glue to put 3 or 4 pieces together at a time, and then clamped the piece down for 30 minutes. If I tried to glue too many pieces together at once, the glue for the first pieces would be nearly set by the time I got around to the last piece. It would have been helpful to have more clamps... I had five around the perimeter of my "R" and there were still places where the flex of the wood left small gaps. It manages to be a passable stool, but still need to make it wider and put better finishing on!