Mac's new fauldstool

[Baron Conal]

His cloak?

[Mac]

His cloak?

Damn! I think you're right. It's his cloak. That explains why it's so high.



Oh well.... it's a nice image of a Type II in any case.

[CTrumbore]

Perhaps the biggest challenge in the Type II fauldstool is drilling the holes straight. I clamped a vise to the drill press table so that the drill was centered in the 3/4" width of the boards. Even after fussing quite a bit to get things nice and true, I still had to correct the hole alignments with a long bit afterwards. I threaded the parts together on a 1/4" all-thread rod (which is conveniently a snoodge under 1/4) and then sent the long 1/4" bit into the other set of holes from both ends of the pack. By flipping and restacking the pack of parts, I got the holes to line up well enough.

I think there were several sources for the inaccuracies I experienced....
---imprecise lay out. My mark out locations were +- about 1/32, but that can add up.
---imprecise location of the drill locations under the drill bit. Ditto
---failure to get the boards nice and square in the vise. Sometimes I could see that things were not quite right and corrected; so I know that this was an issue.
---failure to get the drill press table truly square with the quill. I am pretty sure that it was "out" be a small fraction of a degree. That becomes trouble when drilling deep holes.
---less than perfectly sharp drill bit. I used a brad point, and it was "pretty sharp", but I think it sometimes followed the grain of the wood a little.

All in all, none of the holes was so badly out of line that I felt as though I had compromised the integrity of the wood by "straightening" it with the long bit. I just wish that that step was not necessary.

Mac

I use a jig clamped to the drill press table. The first hole locates by setting the board end into a corner and clamping it, the second by flipping the board round and slipping the first hole over a locating pin.

[Henrik Granlid]

I'm a bit stressed out for a trip, so haven't had time to double check if it's already there.

About how long do the legs/sides/main structurural pieces need to be? I'll try attacking it next week (right before an event) if I can find the time.

[igelkott]

Inspired by this thread, I made my own chair:



I made it the week before Pennsic. It's made of maple except the arms, feet and back which are pine. I was rushed and didn't have time to do these in maple because I wasn't sure how they were going to turn out. So I prototyped them in pine first and simply went with these on the chair. I will change them out to maple when I get a chance.

The chair is awesome. It's much more comfortable than I thought it would be and very sturdy.

The knobs are screwed onto the ends of the metal rods but I think I'll end up cutting them off and peen them over except the ones that hold the back on. I think I'll leave these as knobs for the foreseeable future.

Here's a view of the back:



I also made a quick cooler stand using this design all out of pine:



Thank you Mac for this thread!

[robstout]

nice!

[bigfredb]

Has anyone made up plans (i.e. google sketchup, PDF, etc.) yet?

[Mac]

Inspired by this thread, I made my own chair:




Thank you Mac for this thread!

Splendid! I'm glad it worked out well.

Ironically my chair of that form did not make it to Pennsic this year. When I went to pack it, I found that it had swelled up tight and would not collapse. I was certain that I had left enough slop to accommodate that, but apparently I hadn't. I will have to remove the pivots and scrape down the sided of the wood before refinishing and reassembling. I figure that it will take a couple of hours, exclusive of drying time for the finish.

Mac

[CTrumbore]

Inspired by this thread, I made my own chair:




Thank you Mac for this thread!

Splendid! I'm glad it worked out well.

Ironically my chair of that form did not make it to Pennsic this year. When I went to pack it, I found that it had swelled up tight and would not collapse. I was certain that I had left enough slop to accommodate that, but apparently I hadn't. I will have to remove the pivots and scrape down the sided of the wood before refinishing and reassembling. I figure that it will take a couple of hours, exclusive of drying time for the finish.

Mac

Mine all required the judicious placement of a ball peen to get them to close up again after this war.

(Tap gently at the underside of the slats, on the open end and work your way along both edges. Once you pop the very ends up a bit, the friction usually slackens enough to let them fold)

[Mac]

I tried coaxing it to fold with a raw hide mallet, but all I got for my trouble was about 5° and some dents in the bottoms of the seat slats. I'll try steaming those out while I have the thing in pieces.


Strangely, the "type 1" was still OK in spite of having seen the same summer humidity as the "type 2". I suppose it's about the different orientation of the wood with respect to the growth rings... although the different woods I used may contribute as well. Zenetto (Rob Mazza) says that he has seen the same thing in his fauldstools.

As far as I can tell, the "traditional" method of getting these things to fold again after a week or so or Pennsic humidity is to put them in your car and run the AC while you pack up the camp.


Mac

[Sean M]

These seem like they might be a good choice for people who want something sturdy to sit on while they wait for their turn at a deed of arms. They are shamelessly modern compared to a simple X-frame chair with a cloth or leather seat though ... Tut had some of those.

Schloss Ambras has a lower-tech solution from the 16th or 17th century. Instead of folding up, it can be taken down so that at least the back and maybe the legs are removed.
Overview
Focus on seat
Focus on removable back

[CTrumbore]

I tried coaxing it to fold with a raw hide mallet, but all I got for my trouble was about 5° and some dents in the bottoms of the seat slats. I'll try steaming those out while I have the thing in pieces.


Strangely, the "type 1" was still OK in spite of having seen the same summer humidity as the "type 2". I suppose it's about the different orientation of the wood with respect to the growth rings... although the different woods I used may contribute as well. Zenetto (Rob Mazza) says that he has seen the same thing in his fauldstools.

As far as I can tell, the "traditional" method of getting these things to fold again after a week or so or Pennsic humidity is to put them in your car and run the AC while you pack up the camp.


Mac

What kind of wood? My maple ones are the best, they require little coaxing at all. the red oak ones, however, are horrible about swelling. And I stupidly built for tight tolerances (fear of racking.. I used wood dowels for mine.. they are entirely wood construction).

This year was just so damp I'm surprised my car doors didn't swell fast.

[CTrumbore]

These seem like they might be a good choice for people who want something sturdy to sit on while they wait for their turn at a deed of arms. They are shamelessly modern compared to a simple X-frame chair with a cloth or leather seat though ... Tut had some of those.

Schloss Ambras has a lower-tech solution from the 16th or 17th century. Instead of folding up, it can be taken down so that at least the back and maybe the legs are removed.
Overview
Focus on seat
Focus on removable back

If built right, the X chairs featured in this thread will hold up a ford ranger.. and are quite sturdy. Just don't use cheap pine 2x4s and allthread.

There's a reason these things have existed for 400 years.. and the originals are far skinnier than the ones we make now.

I've stood on mine and even jumped up and down on the seat to reach high things (the ridge pole) at 250# and it didn't shift or suffer any damage at all.

[Mac]

I used "one by" maple from the Home Despot. Perhaps I need to buy my lumber before I need it and give it some time to equilibrate. A great idea, but pretty unlikely.....

In any case, I should do the repairs/modifications before the summer's humidity ends or I won't know how much to take off.

Mac

[igelkott]

Swelling from humidity was one of the reasons I left the ends of the rods threaded. I just didn't know how tight to make them. As it was, I was able to loosen the knobs and then tap on the slats from underneath a few times and it folded right up. I don't think the maple expanded very much. The pine cooler stand however took a bit of work to fold up even though I had wings nuts on the ends of the rods.

[Sean M]

These seem like they might be a good choice for people who want something sturdy to sit on while they wait for their turn at a deed of arms. They are shamelessly modern compared to a simple X-frame chair with a cloth or leather seat though ... Tut had some of those.
...

If built right, the X chairs featured in this thread will hold up a ford ranger.. and are quite sturdy. Just don't use cheap pine 2x4s and allthread. ...

Sure, which is why I contrasted them with the Bronze Age ones which just have two pairs of legs and a wooden, cloth, or leather seat. The Bronze Age ones were not built for gentlemen and ladies of mature physique in overbuilt white harness with 200 horses pulling their chariots though, so I am not sure how they would handle the challenge.

I am not sure when the ones like this with more than two pairs of legs appeared.

[CTrumbore]

Throne of Dagobert was a 4 leg X design, in the 600s.

Curules date back to ancient rome.

[Mac]

This repair is going to be much easier than I envisioned. Now that I have looked at (and thought about) the problem, it's clear that the only place that really needs to have wood removed is on the sides of the free ends of the seat slats. This is the place where the swollen wood has the greatest leverage over the mechanism. Conveniently, it's also where it is easiest to get at with a scraper. This is a lot better than taking out the pivots like I thought I would have to.

The humidity has dropped a bit since just before Pennsic, and the chair was foldable when I picked it up this morning. I've spent about a half an hour with a scraper and a sanding block and I think I have enough clearance now. This afternoon, I'll wipe on a couple of coats of thinned polly in the places where I removed wood; and I can check this job off my list.

Next year, I need to make sure that it will fold a couple of days before I go to pack it. That way, if it needs more of the same treatment, I will have time do it.

Mac

[Thomas Powers]

When I used to take my mortise and tenon tent frame to Pennsic I prepared it by boiling all the joints in wax. Never had a swelling issue afterwards.

[Håvard]

The seat is 18" from the ground. It's 14 1/2" wide and 11 1/4" deep. [...] The first and last seat slats are indeed wider than the ones in between. I got the idea from this stool in a Robert Campin painting. The pivots are clearly a lot higher than you would expect, and the only reason I could think of was that they were in the centers of the (narrower) intermediate slats.

Sorry for necromancing, but I'm in the process of building one and off course I'm starting to think of the next, from riven ash. - From a tree to a fauldstool, as Jenny Alexander would've said. But I'm getting ahead of myself. First question concerns the geometry. Afraid of buttsqueezing I might've been too liberal with the seat width, going for 45 cm, miscalculating and landing at 48 cm (18 7/8''). Height is 49 cm (19'') excluding the bottom rails. This is off course a question of how you splay your legs, but I can't decide if I should take the width down towards 40 cm (15 3/4'') and lift the cross accordingly, getting a narrower seating but wider footing. Or should i keep the width for the regality (and precarity) of it?

Dryfitting (showing off) before shaving off.

Whackamoling with my designer mallet.

Buttsqueezing

Second point relates to Mac's Robert Campin cutout, seeing how the top of the seat slats are wider where they hinge and narrower where they meet the diagonal legs, hinting that not only are the middle ones narrower vertically, as Mac points out, but economize on weight by allowing for narrower legs. This is even more pronounced - allthough distorted - in the BnF Français 50. f 256v, 15th c. (from Mac's pinterest)


This detail does not seem to be universal for type i, but fits nicely both with the narrow legs in the early images, as well as the spacing between the legs in the late 15th c BnF Français 9198, fol 19.r, (also via Mac's pinterest)


This seem to be interesting details to axe out from riven green ash, fitting as the slats are treaded onto the pivots...

As an early 14th c reenactor, I'm glad that the first known image of the type 1 chair takes it back to the first quarter of the century: BL Royal MS 14E III. ca. 1315-25 (Saint-Omer or Tournai?) fol 69v "Joseph of Arimathea disputing with a ruler".

[Mac]

Sorry for necromancing, but I'm in the process of building one and off course I'm starting to think of the next, from riven ash. - From a tree to a fauldstool, as Jenny Alexander would've said. But I'm getting ahead of myself. First question concerns the geometry. Afraid of buttsqueezing I might've been too liberal with the seat width, going for 45 cm, miscalculating and landing at 48 cm (18 7/8''). Height is 49 cm (19'') excluding the bottom rails. This is off course a question of how you splay your legs, but I can't decide if I should take the width down towards 40 cm (15 3/4'') and lift the cross accordingly, getting a narrower seating but wider footing. Or should i keep the width for the regality (and precarity) of it?

I am delighted to see this thread resurrected!

Let me take a moment to say something about proportions. It's important to look at the source material and ignore what other modern makers are doing. The thing I think we can see in the art is that the seat is a similar width to the width of the feet, and the upper rails are barely above the seat. By contrast, most modern reconstructions make the seat wider than the width of the feet. They also tend to try to make the upper rails into arm rests by increasing their height above the seat. The result is very unstable because the upper rails are beyond the foot rails.


I never work with numbers if I don't have to. Full scale sketches and two dimensional articulated models help to work out the proportions.

Mac

[Håvard]

Thank you for your advice, sir. after staring at it for a few hours, i agree that it is best to take it down a bit. I'll remove a few cm of the seat, move the cross down and reduce the height a few cm too.

The remarkable image in Anothomia in Chantilly, Musée Condé, Ms. 334, fol. 272r, 1345, are among those with the narrowest feet I've seen, but as you say, they are hardly narrower than the width of the seat, and it is difficult to say exactly with these early experiments with perspective. It seems like the artist have been studying the real deal, though, not some sketch book image.

The 1454 La Fleur des histoires, de Jean Mansel. Ms-5087 réserve Folio 221v show the same.