Make Things Go Together

Kale Vogt,
July 18, 2024

When I was a kid I loved puzzles. Or even more broadly, I loved to understand how things were put together.

I remember when my parents bought a new toaster, and I asked if I could have the old toaster to play with. I then took it apart and put it back together in my parents’ basement over the course of several days, secretly using my father’s tools.

Yeah, I was cool.

I continue to have flashbacks to these obscure moments in my childhood the further I grow into woodworking. The principle is the same: make things go together.

I tapped into to that child-like mindset this week when designing and building two step stool prototypes. I’d been aching to explore different joinery techniques and forms. Since building my first step stool a couple weeks ago, I found myself attracted to similar small forms – mostly because step stools require less material. If I make an inexcusable mistake, the stakes are lower than say, on a full-size chair.