Horn Stool With Acupressure Mat

A while ago, I became fascinated in the lost art of creating things out of cattle horns. I even made a phone stand out of horn, which I could make another instructible about. But today, I made a stool with horn legs and an acupressure mat on the top.

I discovered horn as a material at a local reenactors fair. All over I saw handmade horn utensils and powder horns being sold. I was struck by how nearly indistinguishable the material is from plastic, yet completely natural. I was also surprised at its relative flexibility. As a thermoforming material, it can be folded and even slightly molded into different shapes. It sent me down a rabbit hole of trying to replicate its use, but for such an intriguing and beautiful natural material I found very little information.

The intent behind this project is manifold; to rediscover a lost art, to make something artistic, functional, and to explore new use cases.

The bed of spikes is a world-renowned tool for both spiritual enlightenment and for medical purposes. In my extensive research, I have found that using an acupressure mat exclusively on your rear may be an effective treatment for tendinitis. Though the use of acupressure mats to treat sore limbs or even arthritis are not quite scientifically accepted, as they don't seem to work for everybody, there are a lot of people out there who swear that it works perfectly for them, and you may just be one. But in any case, there are many who swear to the bed of nails as an intriguing experience and new sensation worth trying. You'll never know until you do it.

The word of the day is "Emotional Appraisal Theory." From my understanding, the theory is about how the effect of an emotion is not purely a reaction to one's environment, but is an understanding or processing of that emotion. Sometimes a painful sensation that the person knows is healthy or harmless can register as a "good" or "healthy" pain. A steady, controlled pain such as this one is intriguing, as it allows one to remain in a safe proximity to a physically injurious experience.

The defining feature of this project is the stylish, unique, and somewhat scary use of cattle horns. They aren't very expensive, being a material in surplus which isn't being used for much. I got these five from a website called Crazy Crow Trading Post. They come raw, without any polish or finish on them, great for working with, and they only cost me $5 to ship. Since the horns are often different shapes and sizes and curvatures, it is wiser to order a few more than you need. I ordered five here, and ended up eliminating one whose shape was completely different from the others.

I made the seat out of a board of white oak. I purchased a relatively small board and used just about all of it for this project. I also used some 2-inch thick wood to create rudimentary flanges. The exact material for them doesn't matter since they aren't visible. It's a perfect time to use up some scrap wood. I would advise a relatively soft wood that can be shaped easily on the beltsander.

The bed of nails I created on my 3D printer, which standard black PLA filament. I will briefly talk about how I made it in CAD, but for everybody who doesn't want to make their own, or who don't own a CAD software, I have attached the STL file down below for anybody who wants to feel the pain.

As an optional extra step, I also created a sort of cushion for the seat out of cork that sits on top the bed of nails, if one desires to use the stool normally. I got it by purchasing a sheet of 1/2-inch thick cork sheet on Amazon.

To get a quality result this project requires a number of shop tables. I used a chop saw, tablesaw, beltsander and a bandsaw. Additionally, I used at different points a hacksaw and a drill.

Cattle horn, among other things such as rims for glasses and chintzy decor, has been used for centuries by indigenous peoples all around the world for making everyday items such as bowls, spoons, buttons, cups, and musical instruments. Horn was always useful as a material due to its commonness. (Just think about the old proverb that states first nations people used "Every part of the buffalo".) But even beyond convenience, the material has a lot of unique and intriguing properties. Firstly, cattle horns are hollow, not solid, making them useful for drinking vessels and musical instruments. It is also thermoforming material, meaning that it softens under heat, allowing it to be shaped and can even conform its shape to simple, shallow molds. Horn, most interestingly, has a chitinous structure giving it a surface, feel, and strength very similar to plastic. As a result, spoons made of horn, such as the one I have been using for over two years, are long-lasting, microplastic-free, non-scratch, and durable; in my opinion, they could be put back into production. Even into the 18th century, horn was commonly used for spoons and bowls and powder horns, particularly in colonial America. People also took the time to inscribe things into the surface of the horn, similar to the art of scrimshaw on ivory. Some people made meticulous pieces of art, whereas others, such as traders and trappers, would scrawl crude maps or write prayers onto their powder horns. As early as the 1800s, horns themselves were revived as a material in higher-class society for making furniture. The strong, cylindrical shape of the horn makes it very strong, enough to hold a human's entire weight. As such, a prodigious but short-lived practice of making chairs out of horn erupted. A lot of them used cowhide upholstery and incorporated a very maximalist aesthetic, meaning that these days a lot of them look kitsch or even ai-generated. Part of the purpose of my project was to revive this ancient technique in a way that is trendy and modern.

After receiving your horns in the mail, you may hard-pressed to figure out how to use them. Especially if they are different shapes and curvatures. (This is why I recommend buying more than you need.) The challenge is that there are two considerations; making sure the horn is arranged in an aesthetically pleasing way, while also ensuring that the wildly varying curvatures still maintain the downward pressure of a person's rear.

My elegant solution was to create a cardboard dummy representing the seat of the stool, and rubber-banding the horns to it. Stick the horns into the soft soil and position them until they look both aesthetically pleasing and like they can hold weight effectively. Then, mark the relative spot where the horns meet the cardboard on the top and the ground, to be cut.

Now that you have a vague idea where the horns should be cut, do exactly. I recommend being very conservative with the cuts you make, as I imagine you won't have many horns to spare, and you will probably want to cut more later to make it exact. I used a hacksaw to accomplish this step, as using a bandsaw may require making a new jig for each piece.

The tips of the horns, you may find, are the most solid parts. Do not worry, it only lasts for several inches.

I highly advise you wear a mask, as the horn releases a strong but harmless odor when it is cut, even with a hacksaw, and absolutely with a power tool. I recommend doing this step outside if you can.

For this project, I had to go on blurry pictures from antiques websites on how to actually attach the horns to the chair. In the end, I decided on using dead simple wooden flanges screwed both into the horns and into the seat.

It's a perfect time to bust out the scrap pieces. Take 2-inch pieces of wood, any type, and cut them into the relative shape of the hole of each horn. I would advise numbering the horns and the flanges with tape, so you don't mix them up. Then, shape each piece on the belt sander until they fit inside the horns perfectly as corks fit a wine bottle. ...Or maybe not quite as perfectly. Just make sure they fit tight and are flush with the top of the horn.

We will now take a break from the horns and start making the seat. I used white oak for my seat. Making the seat is dead simple if you understand simple carpentry better than I do. Just make a square (A glue-up may be necessary), and cut 4 approximately 2-inch walls with 45-degree chamfers on the end so they all fit together perfectly like a picture frame around the seat. But I would not advise attaching them yet!

Please keep in mind that if you want to make a cork cushion for your piece, you should plan to to inset the bed of nails at least a quarter of an inch lower than the walls themselves, so the cushion can rest inside.

Here it is wisest to screw the flanges onto the seat prior to screwing them into the horns. First, set your horns on top of the seat so you can make sure you know where you want them to be, and faintly outline in pencil where you want the flanges to be. Remove all the flanges from the horns and screw each of them into the base of the chair.

Remember, since the bed of nails will be going into the seat, it is best to keep it perfectly flat. Therefore, use countersunk flathead screws to attach the flanges to maintain a flat surface.

It is best to make a through hole in the seat and a pilot hole in the flange. This way, the screw is embedded into the flange, and the head pulls the seat firmly down into place. If you screwed pilot holes into both, then one material may be tugging unfairly on another, or even a gap may appear in between the two, as the parts of the screw's threading may be out of alignment on each piece.

I did not want the screws on my piece to stick out too much. That is why I purchased brass screws and tarnished them, to give them an extremely old and dark appearance, to blend in with the color of the horn and give the piece a more vintage look.

Here's how to tarnish brass.

The best way to do it is with acetone fumes. Not the acetone itself, the fumes. This requires suspending the piece you want tarnished inside a container above a pool of acetone. How I did it was I found an old plastic container and hot glued the screws, head-down, facing the ethanol, and screwed on the lid. After about three hours, I returned and emptied out the container. The screws looked really old.

Here is where the tarnished screws are gonna be used. Fit the horns around the flanges and put at least two screws in each one to secure them. I used three, and placed them equilaterally so they would look as symmetrical as possible.

There are a couple of complications.

First, to prevent the two materials from fighting each other, it is best to put a through hole through the wood where the screw will go, and a pilot hole into the flange where the screw will go. This way, the screw will be embedded into the wood, and pulling the horn into it. If you drove a pilot hole into both, the screw will be attached to both, and each will tug at each other, possibly causing splitting or deformation.

Now that you have the horns attached to the seat, you may encounter a problem. In fact, you probably will. It's perfectly fine-- the horns are completely asymmetrical, unpredictable, un-parallel material. In all likelihood, after being attached, the chair will wobble. Maybe even horribly.

How I solved it was by setting each leg of the stool beside a quick jig. After this was done I cut each piece to the exact same height and made micro-adjustments as I went. After doing all four horns at least once or twice each, I came out with a chair that sat pretty flat.

Now that we have the beginnings of our wonderful and painful stool, we are going to make sure that we have the length we want. Hopefully the legs are arranged in a way that appears both aesthetically pleasing and structurally sound.

But unless you were confident that you could cut the horns perfectly the first time, or you in fact found that they were after finishing the last step (which, lucky you), then you will probably be in my position in finding the legs way too long. The points on which they sit are too small, and possibly flare way out from the center of the seat, looking ugly and probably affecting the center of gravity.

My stool was fixed by creating another jig. This time it was made to accommodate the entire seat at once, and I used this chop saw to level out the horn legs to the exact size I wanted them. I did about two passes per leg, to be as careful as possible. The old carpenter's adage is true as ever; you can always remove material, but you can never add material.

As with the previous steps, I strongly advise wearing a mask while cutting the horn, especially on the saw, and to do it outside if you can, or open a window. The horn has a strong and musky smell when it is cut, which after completing this project spread through my entire house for the next entire day. Somehow the smell made it into rooms all the way on the other side of the house on the upper floor. It is not dangerous to breathe as far as I know, unless you are inhaling large quantities of dust, which is never healthy. I wore a dust mask for this step.

Now everything seems so close to finished. I simply used wood glue to attach the walls to the seat. Typical glue-up job here; I made sure to keep the glue from dripping on the horns, and I used plenty of clamps to keep everything in place.

Next, I used a 3D Modelling software to make the spikes. Many 3D Modelling softwares use similar tools. For these spikes I made cones and used the twist tool to give them some twistiness of shape that makes them reminiscent of the horn legs. I also added a whole grid network down below that is designed to look cool.

Please remember, again, that if you want to take the optional extra step of adding a cork cushion to the chair to make the spikes go up to at least a quarter of an inch lower than the walls of the seat. This way, the cork cushion can be dropped in and out perfectly in place with ease every time, with no slipping or sliding.

I printed off multiple experimental runs of the spikes, which I highly advise one to do as the sharpness of the spikes should be attuned to one's level of comfort or discomfort. My spikes I ended up making pretty sharp. I actually removed half of the spikes because in my original design I put so many so close together that the weight was distributed too evenly-- I didn't feel anything sitting on them.

Please remember that testing the spikes with your hand is not an accurate measurement of how sharp these spikes will be. Your hand has more nerve endings than your rear, and is more sensitive. It also, probably unlike your rear, has no protective layers of fabric between the skin and the nails. Just saying. It is also a much smaller area of skin that the spikes are poking at, unlike with your rear, which will have a much bigger surface area. ...Also just saying.

The point is, if you take these off the printer and panic when you touch the tips of the spikes with your finger, don't. Throw it on the table and sit on it. I have. I've done it plenty of times. The concept of a bed of nails is scientifically proven to be safe. It's just physics. The amount of weight placed on that amount of points spread over that amount of space will produce momentary discomfort or even pain-- but within a matter of seconds will become painless. Mystics who want to embrace the ascetic lifestyle have even fallen into peaceful sleep laying on beds of nails. This is not a magic trick. You can do that exact same thing. It's just willpower and a lack of fear, and a willingness to find comfort and accept the less-than-ideal conditions you have been given, because it will be okay in the end as long as we trust ourselves and our environment. That is what the bed of nails teaches us.

And just a sidenote, don't be too afraid before you sit down, because tensing your muscles won't make it any softer. Just let your fat flow over the spiky surface.

To make the spikes printable on my small home 3D printer, I split it into four quadrants. To make the seamlines invisible, I cut the seams exactly between the cuts of the diamond-shaped pattern, to make them interlock perfectly. I also had to print off a single square to put in the center of the seat to complete the pattern.

I also want to add a note here that the amount of pain you will vary greatly depending on your clothing. If you are wearing a thick pair of jeans, you will feel very little. Conversely, if you are wearing a thin dress, you will be poked much more noticeably. So keep in mind who and what clothing you are designing for.

Attaching the bed of nails is practically as simple as dropping them in. My tolerances were so tight that I practically did not need to do anything other than that. However, I wanted it to be perfect.

Before adding the spikes, I looked at where all the seams were, and made sure to paint those parts of the wood black, so not a single atom of light wood show the wood underneath, hiding any seams even more.

You could glue in the bed of nails, but I thought it would be better to keep them easily removable, so as to be able to get to them again.

I think I can speak for all of us when I say that we don't necessarily always want to be poked mercilessly in the rear when we sit down. Some of us want a nice, amicable flat surface.

For any time me or one of my guests does not want to embrace the pain, I created an easily removable flat surface to coddle us with. For the material, I chose cork, as it is a fairly rigid material, but fairly soft, while not being as soft as actual foam or fabric. It will provide a good middle ground between not being so soft the spikes go right through it, and not so hard that it will dull the tips of the spikes when sat on. It is also not quite as hard as sitting on a piece of wood.

For this, I cut two big squares of cork out of my huge sheet I purchased on Amazon and glued them together. Now, to sand the glued edges down to the point you can't see the glue seam anymore is tricky. The cork material flies away so fast on the beltsander that accurate measurements when you are cutting end up being superfluous. Just mark where the cushion should be and when cutting with your X-acto blade, give it a wide berth. I gave something like a full inch. Then, shape it on the beltsander. You may be surprised how well the material actually laminates.

This was why I made sure to remind all if you to make the spikes go about a quarter of an inch below the level of the walls. This way, you can drop in the cushion and have it stay in place, whenever the fancy strikes you to use it.

Well, I hope you are happy with yourself. You have created a stylish stool that revives 19th-century furniture-making trends with a modern look, as well as a torture device that forces the user into self-reflection and encourages them to pursue an ascetic lifestyle. You have also made a wonderful conversation starter, as inviting people to try their luck sitting on the stool is a guaranteed way to unite people with a common activity and a laugh at a party or awkward get-together. In addition, you have created a piece of furniture which creepily resembles a living, crawling thing.

I invited my classmates and teachers to sit on the stool. My furniture teacher, who was uneasy during my entire development process, proclaimed the sensation "Not as bad as I thought", and invited everybody else to try it. Another teacher of mine admitted that it "Is definitely not a product for anybody, but has a niche audience." Another few classmates of mine cringed in discomfort as they tried it out. But to be fair, I told them not to fear the chair, and not to tense their muscles-- which they did anyway. (And what did we learn?) A couple of my other classmates who sat on the chair found it a painless and rather interesting experience, one student in particular, who is very open-minded, particularly about eastern philosophy, said she actually liked the feeling.

All of them agreed it hurt. But not all of them found it to be a negative experience. The key factor here was not the bodily feeling of the spikes on the skin, but the mental and emotional appraisal of that feeling. In human-centered design, we are always focused on giving people exactly what they think they want. But sometimes, it is more important to make something daring, contradictory, even unpleasant. The hard truths don't always lead to painful conclusions. Sometimes, they lead to new and fascinating experiences, and sometimes to pleasant new use cases. What the horn stool teaches is that mind sometimes really can be put over matter.