Creating Rustic Bandsaw Texture: The Story Behind the RAD Barstool Design"

Discover the artistry behind the RAD barstool design, where bandsaw curves meet rustic texture. In this story, Brian Boggs shares how he mastered the balance between precision and bold, coarse cuts to create a unique two-toned finish. Learn how slight adjustments to blade tension and guides, along with meticulous tuning, allowed him to achieve a striking texture that aged beautifully over time. This design, created for a restaurant environment, showcases the beauty of intentional wear and the importance of controlling curves while embracing the saw’s natural character. Stay tuned for more videos diving deeper into this fascinating process! The RAD barstool design gave us a fun opportunity to create a lot of bandsawn curves as finished surfaces off the saw tooth. Because I designed this stool for a rustic environment, the saw cuts needed to remain bold enough through the finishing process even after some sanding to soften the sharpness of the cuts. To help the texture’s visibility, we usually stained the stools black before sanding back the high spots to bare wood to be stained a lighter color, usually a brick red. I keep my saws finely tuned so I can control cuts. The challenge in this case was to take advantage of the saw’s ability to hold to an intended curved cut, while fluttering enough to create a coarse cut allowing our two-toned finishing process to work and still have a bold texture. The restaurant I initially designed these for needed a piece that looked right as the finish wore through. We delivered these stools, 50 in all, about 10 years ago and enjoyed them when we ate there, almost always seated at the bar. It was interesting watching these wear over that time just as intended. The success of this look meant mastering this rustic cut while controlling the curve. What is not mentioned here is that to get this rustic control I loosened the blade tension slightly and opened the blade guides just a bit. It takes several adjustments and practice cuts to get the look right and proved to be a difficult balance to strike. The results proved well worth the extra attention to blade behavior. Several other fixtures on our 30” saw give us the same texture while cutting the rest of the curves in this stool. They needed minimum sanding and flowed through the shop well despite having so many steps to coordinate. #RusticWoodworking #BandsawTexture #BrianBoggsDesign #BarstoolDesign #WoodworkingProjects #BandsawTechniques #RusticFurniture #TwoTonedFinish #WoodworkingMastery #diywoodworking Join this channel to get access to more videos / @boggsbench Sign up for our free newsletter to be notified of a new video or other cool stuff happening at Boggs Bench! https://www.lessons.boggsbench.com/ For more information, plans, and more: https://boggsbench.com See our furniture: https://brianboggschairmakers.com/ Click here to order one of our Bandsaw Love t-shirts https://boggsbench.com/product/bandsaw-love-t-shirts-blue/