Medieval

I sketched a full sized design on paper by drawing the seat at a comfortable height (46cm) and giving it enough width (45cm) to avoid catching my thighs. The fauldstool legs were lightly sketched by eye and tweaked/adjusted until I produced the look I wanted. Since all four legs are identical, a thin cardboard 2d model of one leg was made. This was placed onto the paper and traced around to firm up the final design - one good enough to enable me to calculate where the pivot and the four crosspieces of wood should go. The cardboard template was later used to transfer the correct shape to wood.

The legs are cut from 32mm thick pine. Better quality wood (ash, oak, etc.) would enable thinner legs to be used. My pine wasn't wide enough to accomodate the curve of the legs, so offcuts produced during the cut were glued on to make up the difference. I was concerned about the strength of the legs as a result of these additions, but to be honest I have now forgotten (and can't find) where this operation occured. Many modern glues are stronger than wood itself, of course.

The pine legs were cut with my long-suffering Bosch jigsaw, and the carving at the head and feet was done with a combination of the angle-grinder's sander attachment, chisel and orbital sander. It took a couple of hours.

Getting the four heads to more or less resemble each other was a real pain! Since Hugh Burnell's heraldry depicts a crowned black lion, vaguely lion-oid heads and feet were produced, with a bit of space for some goldwork.

To the right is a close-up of the growliest head.