But what of this new style that has been struggling through to beauty in these post-war years? One sees the impressionistic school of pre-war days. One sees a war-racked England, struggling to get away from its own nerves – the nerves that it inherited form the past. The race feels intensely that things must change.
There are creations like flashes of lightning, or the stars seen by one dazed by a blow; jazz designs in upholstery, sideboards with the oddest shapes stuck on their ends, things designed to meet eyes that are too weary to rest.
Sticky? Yes. It’s made from three sticks. So it’s quite “sticky.”
I just finished up this campaign stool based (loosely) on A.J. Roubo’s model shown in “L’Art du Menuisier.” I turned round legs, whereas Roubo shows legs that are pie-shaped in section. When those legs fold together, they make a cylinder. Clever.
I know how to make legs like this, but I have to come up with a way to do this that doesn’t waste a lot of wood.
As I explained in an earlier post, the pivoting hardware is made using an eye bolt, all-thread rod, washers and acorn nuts. It looks OK, but I’m going to use different hardware for the next version to make it look bad-asser.
The leather, oiled latigo from the saddle industry, is great. Ty Black finished hand-stitching the seat last night. I attached the seat to the legs using No 10 x 1-1/4” solid brass screws from the maritime industry – they are sweet – plus some brass finishing washers from the home center that look like they had been hanging out there since Johnson was in office.
The stool sits really well. It barely weighs a thing. And it folds up nicely. That’s pretty good for a second prototype. But the next stool will be better.
From “The Cabinet of Arts, or General Instructor in Arts, Science, Trade, Practical Machinery, and the Means of Preserving Human Life, and Political Economy, Embracing a Variety of Useful Subjects” by Hewson Clarke, Esq. and John Dougall (London, 1817). Hat tip to Jeff Burks. See the full book here – it’s only a little longer than the title itself.
We were supposed to have finished this three-legged campaign stool more than a week ago. Then our kids got sick, and “To Make as Perfectly as Possible” raised its perfectly ferocious head.
So today, Ty Black and I started tying up the loose ends. He started hand-stitching the seat for the stool – instead of doing it by machine. Because that is a cool thing, I shot a short video of the process that should convince you that it’s pretty darn easy to do.
Me? I chucked the legs back in the lathe and turned a dome shape on their ends so that the legs wouldn’t rip the “sex machine” leather. Plus I added a couple more coats of wax while the legs were on the lathe. I then stripped the zinc off the steel hardware (see a video on this process here) and aged the brass bits that tie the whole stool together and allow the legs to rotate and splay without giving you an amateur enema.
Anyway, we should have photos up tomorrow of the finished stool. The prototype sits quite nicely.
“I sit on a man’s back, choking him, and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am very sorry for him and wish to ease his lot by any means possible, except getting off his back.”
— Leo Tolstoy on authority, “Writings on Civil Disobedience and Nonviolence” (1886)
