Modern Bentwood Coat Stand

Like many older houses in this part of Yorkshire, our front door opens straight into the living space with no hall in which to store boots and coats. As it’s on display all the time, any storage needs to look good as well as being functional. I solved the boots and shoes issue by building an oak rack based on Jayefuu’s clever Shoe Tower design, but I still needed a place for coats and hats. A row of hooks on the wall doesn’t look great in a sitting room, I wanted something free-standing and more sculptural.

I came up with a Scandi-inspired, three-legged design, created using Fusion 360, in steam-bent oak to match the shoe rack. Then last year I found some oak lamellae (thin strips meants for veneering or laminating) for sale at a local hardwood supplier that were perfect for the job. It took a while, because I’d never actually made anything steam-bent before and the design went through several iterations, but I got there in the end.

If you can’t find any ready-made thin strips, you can always cut your own by re-sawing planks.

12 oak strips, 3-4mm thick and at least 55mm wide and 1950mm long

15 oak strips of the same width and thickness, at least 220mm long

Wood glue, eg PVA

Thick (at least 18mm / ¾”) plywood, MDF or chipboard to use as a former

A wallpaper steamer

A short length of small bore copper pipe

Plumbing fittings to connect pipe to the steamer’s hose

Scraps of softwood or plywood

100mm diameter aluminium concertina hose, as used for cooker hood vents

Thermal insulation materials, eg foam, mineral wool or even old blankets and rugs

9 M4 stainless steel threaded inserts, slotted drive, 8-9mm long with M6 male thread (unflanged type)

9 steel M4 bolts / machine screws with countersunk heads, 25mm long

Clamps – lots of them

A mallet

A few metres of vinyl wallpaper, or any waterproof paper

A length of string, a drawing pin and a pencil

A long ruler or other straight edge

A retractable rule that will measure at least 1.5m

A carpenter's square

An old paintbrush or narrow roller, say 50mm (2”) wide, to apply glue

Saws – ideally a chop saw and a bandsaw, but hand saws will do

A plane, preferably a big one, say no.6

Sandpaper, and ideally a hand-held sanding machine

A drill with various wood bits, especially 4mm, 5.5mm and a countersink bit

A chisel

A thermometer (not essential)

Heat-resistant gloves, eg rigger gloves or oven gloves

A flat head screwdriver to suit the threaded inserts

A short length of 9-10mm diameter oak dowel (optional)

An Allen key or Phillips screwdriver to suit the M4 bolt heads

A hacksaw or Dremel and two M4 nuts (may not be needed)

Wood finish, eg Danish oil or raw linseed oil

Please note that, while I give Imperial measurements here and there so that those who are more used to them can get a feel for the dimensions of the finished coat rack, these measurements are only approximate and it’s impractical to do it throughout the construction instructions. I strongly recommend that you use metric units to make it, or else re-design it from scratch in inches.

The PDF drawing attached below gives the coat rack's basic measurements. It stands 1736mm (5ft 8”) tall and the centre points of the outside edges of its feet sit on a 604mm (23¾”) diameter circle. It has three identical legs, 47.5mm (1⅞") wide, each of which is laminated from 4 thin strips of oak (other hardwoods could be used instead). They lean in towards each other at an angle of 11^o to the vertical. (Actually it’s 10.75^o, but don’t even try cutting with that degree of accuracy.) They’re straight at the bottom for 1442mm (56¾”) but the tops curve outwards to provide somewhere to hang a coat or hat. There’s also a short straight section right at the end, beyond the curve. The tip of this straight section is within the footprint of the coat stand, so it's stable even if something heavy is hung from from just one of the three tips.

The legs are constrained by screwing them to the ends of a 3-armed piece, also made from laminated oak strips, the top surface of which is 525mm (20¾”) above floor level. (I’m going to call this piece the tripod, even though it’s flat, because I can’t think of a better term.) The legs are similarly constrained at the top of the straight section, immediately below the start of the curve, by being screwed to a small oak triangle. This makes the structure adequately rigid, even though it’s quite lightweight and elegant-looking. As long as you use threaded steel inserts in the tripod and the upper triangle rather than screwing directly into the wood, the coat rack can be dismantled and reassembled without causing any damage. That means it’s easy to store and can be put away for the summer.

If you’ve never tried steam bending before, this project may seem daunting. But I’d only ever dabbled with steaming before this, it’s the first thing I’ve actually made from steam-bent wood, and also the first time I’ve ever laminated wood. I found that both processes were straightforward if I went about them methodically and prepared properly, but it’s advisable to have a second person to assist. Doing both steaming and laminating was necessary because the oak strips were too thick to bend into the curve I wanted unless they were first steamed, so laminating alone wasn’t possible. And when I tried steaming alone, there was a substantial springback (ie the steamed strips didn’t stay in the same curve once dry and removed from the former) which was difficult to predict, making it impossible to achieve exactly the shape I needed for my design.

4 hot, steamy strips of oak will be clamped onto a former for each leg, to curve the upper parts of them to a radius (measured on the face against the former) of 245mm (approx. 9.5”). When the 4 strips are cool and dry, they will then be laminated to each other and clamped back onto the same former to glue them together and set them in the required curve. So the first job is to make a pattern or template in the shape of the former, which will look a bit like a hockey stick.

The outer face of the curve of the hockey stick needs to have a radius of 245mm, the same as the curve at the top of the coat stand’s legs. Draw this on a piece of paper that’s at least 50cm wide and 2m long – wallpaper is ideal for this and you can often find odd rolls for sale very cheaply in DIY stores. If you need to buy a roll, get vinyl wallpaper because it’s stronger and waterproof, then you can use the rest of the roll to protect your table or bench from glue when you get to the laminating stage. Draw on the back of it.

Knot a loop into one end of a piece of string to take a pencil, then stick a drawing pin or tack through the string at the right distance from the loop to give a radius of 245mm. Mark the centre point you’re going to use on the paper and stick the pin in there. Start drawing from a point near the edge of the paper and at least 320mm down from its top edge, to give enough room for a curve of the right length. It can be hard to get the radius just right first time, so keep moving the pin along the string if necessary until you get an arc with a radius of 245mm, but keep the centre point the same each time. You don’t need to draw a whole circle, just a quarter of it, positioned near the top of the paper.

When you’ve got it the right size, draw a radius line from the centre point across the paper to the start of the arc. This line should be approximately perpendicular to the long edges of the paper. Then use a set square (or just the corner of a sheet of paper) to draw in the tangent to that curve, which will be approximately parallel to the long edges. Lengthen that straight line to 1500mm, which is a little longer than the straight part of each leg.

Measure 305mm (the length of the curved part of each leg) along from the end of a piece of string and make a mark on the string at that point. Use the string to measure 305mm round the curve you’ve drawn from the radius line, and mark that point on the paper. Draw a new radius line from that point. If you measure the angle between the two radii, it should be 71^o.

Draw a tangent to the curve starting at the second radius line and extending for 150mm. This again is a little longer than the 100mm straight section at the top end of each leg.

Now you have the outside edge of the former drawn – a straight section 1500mm long with a tangential arc 305mm long of radius 245mm and then another tangential straight section 150mm long, 1955mm in total. The first image above shows what it should look like on a piece of paper 50cm wide.

Offset this profile by about 75mm (it doesn’t have to be exact) to draw the inside edge. You need to be able to clamp the oak strips onto the former, with a piece of plywood between each clamp and the outermost strip, so check how wide the jaws of your clamps will open before deciding what the offset should be. Don’t make it too narrow though, or the former may not be strong enough, especially if it’s made from chipboard. Rather than matching the curve on the inner edge, draw a series of straight lines to make it easier to clamp onto.

I regretted making a former with a straight section much shorter than the straight section of the legs. I did that because I made it from an old table top that wasn’t big enough, and I thought it wouldn’t need to be full length given that the oak strips were already straight and I was only going to steam the upper curved section. This was a mistake because some steam escaped from my steamer and softened the lower parts of the strips, so they bent and twisted a little and I had nothing to clamp them onto to straighten them out. Remedial steaming and clamping to a straight former were needed later to sort that out, so I strongly recommend that you make your former full length, ie to the measurements given above.

Draw in lines perpendicular to the outside edge for the top and bottom of the former template, then cut it out.

First measure the width of your oak strips. I started off with 192mm wide oak lamellae which I ripped down into 60mm wide strips. However, I ended up with 47.5mm wide legs, mainly because I didn’t get the edges of the strips lined up well enough when I laminated the first leg, meaning that I had to do a lot of planing afterwards to get the sides of that leg flat and then bring the other two down to the same width. If you think you can do a better job than me (and you probably can), then you could start with strips narrower than 60mm. Cut them down if necessary – do this before re-sawing if you are making your own strips rather than buying them - then plan to make a former that’s a similar height, although it could be a little higher.

From cheap plywood, MDF or chipboard, cut enough identical hockey stick-shaped pieces to give you a former of the required height when they are stacked one on top of another. Do that by drawing around your template and then cutting out the sheet material with a jigsaw or bandsaw. Pay particular attention to getting the outside edge accurate, this is the face that the wood will be clamped against. I used an old table top made of melamine-faced chipboard for my former, which was ideal. I needed 3 layers to get me to 60mm, and I made sure that the top layer had the melamine surface upwards and the bottom layer downwards, to make it easier to wipe off glue.

Glue the layers together, taking care to get the outside edges lined up, and clamp them until the glue has set. Then check over the outside face and sand it smooth if necessary, without removing too much material. Place the template back on the former and use it to make an indelible mark on the top surface at the two radius lines you drew in the previous step, ie at the points where the straight sections transition to each end of the curve. Also mark an arrow that's approximately mid way between them, ie at the centre of the curved section.

You need to fix something to the outer face of the former to prevent the oak strips sticking onto it when you laminate the legs, and it’s a good idea to do that before the steaming process too. Waxed paper is ideal, as is thin polypropylene sheet if you happen to have any. Any waterproof paper should do, including vinyl wallpaper and baking paper. (If the paper isn’t waterproof then glue will seep through it and you may end up with legs stuck pretty firmly to the former.) It doesn’t matter if the paper itself sticks to the legs, they will need sanding anyway. Stick down this waterproof layer to the former – I used double sided tape for polypropylene sheet.

You may want to seal the top and bottom faces of the former with a coat of paint or watered-down PVA if they’re not melamine-faced. The laminating process is quite messy and glue will get everywhere.

Perhaps you are lucky enough to have a dedicated wood steamer. For the rest of us, a wallpaper steamer and an aluminium tube will do just fine. Most people know someone who'll lend them a wallpaper steamer even if they don’t own one themself. I happened to have a length of 100mm diameter flexible/extendable aluminium vent hose left over from installing a cooker hood, but it’s not expensive to buy. An 80cm length will stretch up to 2.5m, which is plenty.

You’re going to need to cut 2 circles of fairly thick (say at least 25mm / 1”) softwood or ply that will fit in the ends of the aluminium hose and act as bungs. Taper the edges so you can jam them in securely.

One of the bungs will be at the upper end of the steaming chamber and needs 4 horizontal slots in it big enough to post oak strips through, letterbox style. Make them only slightly bigger than the cross section of an oak strip, you don’t want to lose too much steam through them, but nor do you want to pull the bung out of the tube when you are trying to slide a strip out. I drilled a line of holes for each one then used a chisel to turn them into slots. These slots will inevitably let some steam escape, which is a good thing because otherwise pressure could build up to the point where a bung is blown out, scalding anyone nearby. If you have a suitable thermometer, drill a hole for it at the top of the bung, above the slots.

The other bung will need a central hole through which the steam is fed, and a hole near the bottom for a condensate drainage pipe.

As well as the two bungs, I made simple plywood feet to support the aluminium hose at several points and stop it rolling around. They varied in height to give a gentle fall from one end to the other so that the condensate could drain out.

Refer to the photos to see how I set up the steaming chamber. My wallpaper steamer’s pipe has a 1/2" female thread on the end which normally screws onto the steam plate that you hold against a wall. I used a compression fitting with a 1/2" male thread to couple the steam pipe onto a short length of copper plumbing pipe (microbore with an 8mm outside diameter). I jammed the pipe through an 8mm hole drilled through the centre of the wooden bung blocking the lower end of the chamber. Another length of microbore, bent downwards, was jammed though a lower hole in the same bung to create a drain for the condensate.

When you have everything connected up, fill your wallpaper steamer to a little more than the minimum level then turn it on. Put a bucket with some cold water in it beneath the condensate drain. Check for leaks once steam is being generated, then leave it to cool before fixing them.

Check the steamer's manual to find out what the maximum steaming time is before refilling, or else fill it to the maximum level (which will be marked) and time how long it takes for the water to drop to the minimum level. You'll need to know this because it won't be possible to top up the steamer in the middle of the process, it will have to be left to cool before the lid of the water tank can be safely removed.

NB. In the photos the steaming chamber is much shorter than the coat rack’s legs and as a result they protruded a long way through horizontal slots in the bung at the upper end. That’s because I didn’t think it would be necessary to steam the lower, straight part of the legs. I don’t recommend that, as explained in Step 2. However, I do think it’s sensible to have a short piece of leg protruding through each slot, because it makes removal much easier and also keeps the legs separated at (what will become) their lower ends during the steaming process. This short piece will still get steamed by the steam escaping through the slots, and in any case will likely be trimmed off when the legs are cut to length after laminating.

Examine the strips to identify any damage, cracks, knots, stains, etc as well as any with particularly nice grain patterns. Work out which 4 you will use for each of the 3 legs, which layer of the lamination each will form and which way around it will go. The inside and outside faces will be the only ones that are visible, so use your best pieces for those, especially the one that’s on the inside of the curve (ie against the former) because that will be facing outwards on the finished coat rack. Areas of damage such as stains, small cracks and knots can be hidden in the two middle layers as long as they’re not too near the edges, but keep cracks and knots to the lower, straight part of the legs because the strips may break at these weak points if they’re bent. As far as possible, have the grain along the edges of all the strips in each leg running in the same direction, it will make planing much easier later on. (You can tell which way the grain goes by running your fingers along the edge to see which direction feels smoother.)

Cut your oak strips to length if they’re too long. They do need to be longer than the finished legs to allow for trimming (which is why we made the straight part of the former a generous length), but 1950mm is ample. The strips on the outside of the curve will of course have to go further than those on the inside, but the extra distance is only at most 16mm for a total 13mm thickness.

Mark the strips in pencil at both ends on the face that will be towards the former, eg: A, B or C to indicate which leg; 1, 2, 3 or 4 to indicate which layer; and arrows to indicate which way is up, ie pointing towards the curved part of the leg. You need to be methodical about this, there’s no time for uncertainty when the strips come out of the steamer. Also, make a mark on the edge of each strip that will be uppermost on the former, 305mm down from the top end. This is approximately in the centre of the curved part, and you will line it up with the arrow you marked on the former in Step 3. Make all the marks bold, they need to be very obvious even on damp, steam-darkened wood.

Each leg’s worth of strips have to be left clamped on the former until they’re fully dry, at least 24 hours, which means you’ll only be able to steam one leg per day at most. But before you do the first one, it’s not a bad idea to run a test using three or four of your offcuts. Put them in the higher end of the steamer, cover it with foam insulation, old blankets, rugs, coats or whatever you have to keep the heat in, turn the wallpaper steamer on and begin timing from when steam starts escaping through the slots in the upper bung. If you have a thermometer, you are aiming for a temperature as close as possible to 100^oC. The first time I did this I didn’t insulate my steaming chamber and it only reached the low to mid 90s, which wasn’t hot enough to soften the lignins in the oak and make it pliable.

Steam for 20 minutes or so, then remove the upper bung, fish the first strip out while wearing thick rigger gloves – use tongs as well if you have any. Quickly replace the bung and see how bendy the strip is. You’ll only have a few seconds before it stiffens again, so try to get someone else to replace the bung while you’re playing with it. Will it bend around the curved part of the former? If the answer is no, wait another few minutes before trying again with the next one.

Make a note of how long it takes to get the wood soft enough, then add 10-15 minutes to allow for the fact that 4 long strips will take more time to heat up than a few short offcuts. I ended up steaming for 45-60 minutes before removing the first leg strip, kiln-dried wood can take a surprisingly long time to soften even when it’s only a few mm thick. Bear in mind the maximum steaming time from a full tank of water, as determined in Step 4, and plan accordingly.

When you’re ready to steam the first leg’s 4 strips, two pairs of hands are definitely better than one. First prepare a length of plywood for each of your clamps that you can put between the clamp’s jaw and the oak strip to spread the load and apply pressure across the full width of the strip at that point. Also gather 3 short offcuts of oak strip, or ply of a similar thickness, that you can use to stop steam escaping from the slot in the upper bung after removing each lamella.

Check that the aluminium hose that forms the steaming chamber is extended far enough for the strips to fit in, bearing in mind that some of the space at the ends is taken up by the bungs and the copper pipes. Then load the strips in from the upper end of the chamber, with the upper (curved) ends first and separated by strips of scrap wood so that the steam can get to every face. You may need strips part way along too, but the lower ends (the feet of the legs) will be separated by sticking a short way out of the slots in the upper bung, say 25mm/1”. Having them protruding like this means each one can be pulled out in turn without removing the bung and letting all the steam out. They should be stacked in order with the first one (ie the one that will go against the former) at the top and the last one at the bottom, and all with the face that will be towards the former downwards.

Fill the steamer with water and turn it on, remembering to cover the steaming chamber with insulation and to place a bucket of cold water to catch the condensate. While you’re waiting for steam to be raised and then timing the steaming period, set up the former with the curved face against which your strips will be clamped on the far side. Ideally, have it parallel with the steaming chamber and the same way round as the strips within it, ie with the curved end of the former at the lower end of the chamber, then you won’t have to remember which way to rotate them. Get out your clamps and plywood strips and put on gloves that will protect your hands from the heat.

Make sure your helper knows what you are going to be doing – the two of you will pull out the uppermost strip (being careful not to dislodge the bung), twist it through 90^o so that the correct face is now towards the former, then push it around the curved section of the former, lining up the marks denoting the centre point. One of you will clamp while the other holds the wood in place against the curve, but not holding it so tightly that it can’t slide along as much as it needs to in order to take the curve. Starting from the centre point, work up the curve to the top end of the former, quickly applying clamps (with plywood under the jaw) as you go, then down from the first clamp to the bottom of the former. The straight part of the leg won’t need so many clamps, particularly if you use longer pieces of plywood there. Once you reach that lower straight part, one pair of hands should be enough and your helper can stuff an offcut of oak strip into the empty slot in the steamer bung to limit the amount of steam escaping.

When the first strip is clamped on and you've allowed a few minutes for the steamer to get up to temperature again, pull the second strip out and clamp it onto the first, lining up the marks at the centre of the curve again. As you are getting the strip out of the steamer your helper should be releasing the clamps - leave the top and bottom ones until last - while holding the first strip in place (around the curve in particular) until you can get the second one pushed against it and reapply the clamps. This takes teamwork. Repeat with the other two strips.

Turn the steamer off and leave it to cool before touching it.

Leave the strips clamped to the former until they are fully dry, which is likely to take at least 24 hours. Preferably, leave them clamped on until you’re ready to laminate them, because they will spring back when the clamps are released and may keep straightening for a while afterwards. I left them for 48 hours, given the damp British climate. Before unclamping, draw pencil lines across the edges of the strips level with the top and bottom edges of the former (or level with a mark you make on the former near the top and bottom that all the strips reach), and also radial lines at the marks that indicate the start and end of the curved section. Check that the marks half way along the curved section are still visible. These lines will enable you to place the strips back on the former in exactly the same position when you have glued them.

For the lamination process you’ll need to cover the worksurface with something because you’re going to be slopping a lot of glue about. Vinyl wallpaper with the vinyl side up is my material of choice.

A second pair of hands is advisable for this step too.

Decant a generous amount of wood glue into a dish that’s wide enough to take the brush or roller you’re planning to use. I used ordinary PVA, as supplied in 5 litre containers for building work, because it’s cheap, it has a reasonably long working time and it’s perfectly strong enough for indoor woodwork. Prepare a few plywood strips that are about the same width as the thickness of 4 oak strips (about 13mm in my case) or a little wider – you’ll use these with a mallet to knock down the edges of the strips to line them up with each other.

Number the visible, upper edge of each strip at its top and bottom in pencil, using the same numbers as before (1 on the inside of the curve, 4 on the outside), because you won’t see the marks you made on the faces once you’ve covered them in glue.

Again, explain to your helper what you will be doing. You will unclamp the strips and lay them down, in order, on edge (keeping the same edge downwards as on the former). One of you will slather glue on all faces except the one that was against the former and the outermost face of strip number 4. Once strip numbers 1 and 2 (three faces in total) have been covered in glue, the other person will put them back on the former, lining up the pencil marks and giving the strips a little wiggle as they are pushed against each other, to make sure the glue reaches all parts of the surface. Then the other two strips will go in place on top of them, with another little wiggle each time, and finally the two of you will work from the centre of the curve in both directions, applying clamps with plywood under them. Before fully tightening the clamps, work along the length knocking the edges of the oak strips right down against the worksurface using a mallet and strips of plywood. All of this needs to be done quite quickly, before the setting glue makes it too difficult for the layers to slide over each other.

Wipe off as much of the excess glue as possible – a lot should squeeze out from between the layers – before leaving it to dry. I gave it 48 hours. Then unclamp the laminated leg – it should be very stiff and strong. Some of the pieces of plywood used under the clamp jaws may well have stuck to the leg, and it may itself have stuck a little onto the former. Just knock them/it off with a mallet, oak is strong and it’s unlikely that you’ll do any damage. If paper is stuck to the leg, wet it and scrape it off.

Remove any dried glue from the former that’s going to interfere with the bending or laminating process, then steam-bend and laminate two more legs in the same way.

Find the marks you drew on the edge of each leg to denote where the straight section transitions to a curve and vice versa, and transfer them to the face that will be inside on the finished coat stand. Then plane all 6 long edges to get them flat, straight and the legs all the same width - clamp them together for the final stage. If they’re anything more than a little wider than the 47.5mm of my design, you will have to make adjustments to the size of the upper triangle (see Step 10), and also the length of the tripod arms (Step 9) or else move the tripod up a bit, to avoid the curved part of the legs interfering with each other where they come together at the top.

After planing down the edges you’ll be able to see if there are any gaps between the layers – don’t worry if there are, we’ll deal with them soon.

Measure 1442mm down from the lower transition point on the face of a leg and mark a cutting line across here. Similarly, mark the upper cutting line 100mm up from the upper transition point. Do the same on the other two legs. Before trimming them to length, line them up next to each other on a table or bench with the transition points level, or even stack them on their edges on top of each other, and check that the cut lines marry up. Then cut off the excess at top and bottom using a chop saw or crosscut hand saw. Again, this may reveal some gaps between the layers.

(Don't be temped to angle the feet while cutting the bottom of each leg to length. It's much easier to get the tripod and upper triangle in the right places if the feet are square and you can measure from the inside face as well as the outside face. Cutting the angle so the bottom face is horizontal is done in Step 14.)

Use something about 35mm in diameter to draw around to round off the 2 corners at the upper end of each leg, then cut just outside the line. I did this with a bandsaw before finishing off with a sanding block to complete the rounding process by bringing the shape down to the marked line.

Now sand the faces and edges of the legs to remove the water stains left by the steaming process and glue from lamination. Don’t go down to fine grit at this stage, we need to fill any gaps between layers of oak first. Save the oak sawdust that you make, or else make clean dust by sanding a piece of scrap oak, then mix it with wood glue to form a paste that’s reasonably thick but not so stiff that you can’t force it into the gaps around the edges of the legs. Just mix up small quantities at a time because the dust draws moisture from the glue and it dries very fast.

Work around all the edges filling gaps with the glue/sawdust mixture and wiping away as much excess as possible with a damp cloth. When it’s dry, sand the filler smooth and go over all the surfaces with sandpaper again, this time working down the grades to give whatever finish you think is suitable. There’s not much point going too fine with oak, in my view, because the grain is quite large. Finally, just go gently down all the edges of the legs with a sanding block to put a very small radius on them instead of leaving them sharp.

Now the legs are made, it’s time to turn to the 3-armed “tripod” that holds the lower part of the coat rack together.

My original plan was to bend copper pipe into a ring that would sit around the outside of the legs to stop them splaying out, held in place by 3D-printed brackets, with a similar but smaller ring around the top of the coat rack. The first image attached to this step is a Fusion 360 render of that design. But I was unable to make a satisfactory job of bending plumbing pipe into a perfect circle of the right size, and I was also unsure about whether plastic, home-made brackets would look the part. I had a rethink and came up with an all-wood design instead, with a flat tripod to hold the legs together part way up the coat stand. A rendered image of the 3-way lapped joint at its centre is shown in the second image. But I warn you, that is probably the hardest part of the whole project as it involves tricky joinery. I do have an option – see below – which should be easier.

Using the short lamellae (which could just be offcuts from whatever you started with to make the legs), laminate 5 strips together to give you enough straight length from which to cut three pieces that are each at least 220mm long, preferably rather longer. You could just use 4 strips like for the legs, but the extra thickness is useful given that you need to sink in threaded inserts at an angle. The new laminated length must end up the same width as the legs, so start off with wider strips like before so the edges can be planed flat later. I used strips that weren’t suitable for steam bending because they had too many knots or cracks. Only the top face of each piece will be visible, put any less perfect ones in the middle of the stack as before, or on the bottom.

After the glue has dried, plane the laminated wood to the right width and also get it to even thickness with 4 square edges – run it through a planer-thicknesser (US: thickness planer) if you have one. I ended up with a thickness of 15.5mm.

Once you have a flat laminated strip with square edges, cut it into three equal lengths. Leave them as long as possible for now, so that if you make a mess of the joinery in one or more of them you can just cut it off square and try again.

The joint I used is a lapped, 3-way joint as shown in 3x3Custom – Tamar’s YouTube video and her photo tutorial, because it’s strong and looks attractive. When I say “I used”, what I really mean is that this is the joint I chose and got my husband to make, as it is well beyond my skill level. He used the 2^nd method shown in the video, starting about 9 minutes in, and we bought some straight-cut router bits with bearings on the shafts (see photo) to do it. If you are going to try it, I advise practising with strips of softwood of exactly the same width and thickness as your laminated oak first – run them through the thicknesser at the same time. Assuming you make a successful test joint, then you will have a table saw set-up and a router template that should work for the laminated oak too. Alternatively, the video and tutorial linked above show that it’s perfectly possibly to construct this joint with hand tools, maybe just using a table saw for the first, full-depth cuts.

Glue the joint together, remembering that only the top face needs to look good, the underside will be too close to the floor for anyone to see. If there are any small gaps, fill them with a sawdust/glue paste as before and sand it all smooth. Finally, draw a line across the top face of each arm exactly 189mm from the centre point and cut them to length at an angle of 11^o such that the length of each arm on the underside is longer than 189mm – how much longer depends on the thickness of the tripod. I used a bandsaw with a tilting table for this job. Sand any splintery bits off the cut edges but they will be hidden and don’t need to look perfect.

If this fancy lapped joint is beyond your woodwork skills too, there are options. One is a 3-way bridle joint, as shown in another of 3x3Custom – Tamar’s YouTube videos. But a much easier way of making the tripod would be to cut a regular hexagon from oak with its sides the same length as the width of the coat rack’s legs, then connect laminated arms to alternate sides with mortice and tenon joints or biscuit joints. The final image of this step is a Fusion 360 render showing how it would look.

Either laminate more strips or use an offcut of solid oak for the triangle that sits between the legs immediately below their curved sections. Draw an equilateral triangle with sides of length 75-80mm on the wood, keeping it some way (say 25mm / 1” away) from the edges. Then cut along the marked lines, again at an 11^o angle so that the underside is a bigger triangle than the top. (And as in Step 9, how big it is will depend on the thickness. All that matters is that the top is the right size to suit the distance separating the legs at the top of their straight sections.)

While you have the bandsaw table still tilted at 11^o (or using the mitre gauge if you prefer), cut each end of three blocks of thick plywood at this angle, so that their cross section is a parallelogram. They should be about 75mm long. These will come in useful for assembling the coat rack.

At this point you need to check that everything is OK, and find out whether the upper triangle needs tweaking a little – which is possible if there is any slight twist or lack of straightness in one or more legs. Measure up 537mm from the foot of each leg on the inside face (the face that the tripod will be attached to) and draw a pencil line across. The top face of the tripod will be on this line which, thanks to the 11^o angle of the legs, is 525 mm above floor level.

Holding one arm of the tripod (smaller face upwards) against a leg in the right place, clamp one of the angled faces of a plywood block immediately underneath it, clamping it to both the leg and the arm of the tripod. Repeat with the other two legs (see photo). Check that the top face of the tripod is level with the lines you’ve just drawn, and pop a spirit level on it if you have one, to make sure it's horizontal.

Now you should have something that looks very much like a coat stand, but you’ll need to hold the legs together at the top, where they come together just below the curve. Holding them with one hand, slide the upper triangle (smaller face upwards again) up the middle until its top face is level with the lines you drew in Step 8 at the transition point. Holding it there, check that the legs are resting flat against the angled edge faces. If the legs are exactly the right size and shape, perfectly straight in their lower sections and untwisted, then an equilateral triangle with its upper face of side 70mm - and lower face of side just less than 81mm if it's 15.5mm thick - should hold them just slightly apart at the transition point. (Slightly apart because in my design each leg is moved radially outwards 2mm from the position where its edges would just touch the ones on either side.) You’ve made a triangle a little bigger than this so that you have scope to tweak the corner angles if it’s necessary to make every leg touch a side of the triangle across its full width, meaning that it’s well supported.

Mark the alterations (if any) that you think are needed on the triangle and label its sides ABC, and the corresponding legs, so you can put it back in the same way around. Then cut a piece of corrugated cardboard to the new shape of the top face and label its sides too. Try it in position on the coat stand before making the modifications to the wooden triangle.

On the other hand, if no modifications are needed, you should find that the triangle will need to move downwards slightly to be a good fit because it is slightly oversized – it shouldn’t push the legs apart, rather fit perfectly in the gap between them. Decide whether you will move it down or trim a little off each side so that its top face is at the transition point, which is 1442mm along each leg from its foot and 1414mm above floor level. If the former, mark the new position of the top face on each leg and rub off the old line at the transition point.

Use a square to draw lines on the outer face, perpendicularly across the thickness of each leg from both the tripod line and the triangle line. Check that the outer face tripod lines are also 537mm from the outer edge of each foot, and that the triangle lines are all the same distance as each other up from the feet.

Now it’s time to screw it all together. Start by making a simple jig from thick plywood to get the placement of the holes in the legs right. Referring to the section drawing above (first image), you can see that the screw holes go through the legs perpendicularly, but they enter the tripod arms (and the upper triangle) at an angle of 11^o above the horizontal. The threaded inserts go into the tripod and triangle at the same angle, which means they need to enter the slanted faces above the centre line of the face in order to place them centrally in the thickness of the wood and avoid any possibility that they will break out of the underside. (The insert is too high in the section drawing.) But how far above the centre line should the screw holes be?

That depends on the thickness of the tripod and triangle, the angle (which is 11^o), the length of the threaded inserts and how far below the surface they will go. The drawing above (2^nd image) shows the measurements for my dimensions, namely a 15.5mm thick tripod and 8mm long inserts with an M6 male thread (ie outside diameter 6mm) that will sit with their slotted ends just below the surface. The slanted edge of the tripod turns out to be about 16mm long (15.5/cos 11^o) and the centre points of the screw holes need to be about 7mm down that face in order for the centre point of the insert to be in the centre of the tripod’s thickness. Do your own trigonometry if your dimensions are significantly different, but you probably won’t be too far out if you place the hole centres 1-2mm above the centre line of the slanted face.

Make the jig by cutting a piece of thick plywood a few inches long (long enough to get a clamp on it without getting in the way of a drill) that’s the exact same width as the legs, with square ends. Draw a line across it, 7mm (in my case) down from one end and then mark the hole centres on that line, equally spaced about the centre. Drill 4mm holes through the jig, preferably with a drill press so that they are perfectly straight. Then clamp the jig to the outside face of each leg in turn, with the top edge against the line that is perpendicularly across from the line on the inside face where the top of the tripod will go. Drill 4mm holes right through.

Using the same jig, clamp it in turn to the end of each arm of the tripod, with the bottom edge of the jig's top face lined up with the top edge of the arm. You can use double sided tape too, to make sure it won't slip. Double check that you have the tripod the right way round, the holes should enter each arm closer to its smaller (upper) face than the larger underside. Use a piece of sticky tape to mark the depth on the 4mm bit, the hole should go into the arm about as far as the length of the threaded insert, no further. Drill all 6 pilot holes to that depth, then drill a few in the end grain of an offcut of laminated oak, ideally an offcut that has also had an 11^o slant cut into it.

Drill out the holes in the offcut with various sizes of bit that are slightly smaller than the inserts' male thread size, then screw an insert into each until you find the best hole diameter. My inserts with M6 male thread wouldn’t go into a 5mm hole but a 5.5mm bit was perfect. If you can’t decide between 2 sizes, go for the larger one, you can always smear epoxy glue over the thread before screwing the inserts into the tripod and triangle. Use your test holes in the offcut to work out what depth of hole is best to allow the threaded insert to sit flush with, or slightly below, the surface. The holes also need to be deep enough to take a machine screw after it has passed through a leg – but you can shorten them if they stick out much beyond the end of the insert. Again, mark the bit with tape before drilling out the holes in the tripod arms. Then screw in the inserts.

Make a third hole in the jig to place the single screw hole in the upper triangle, on the centre line of the jig. Drill a hole at the marked place on each leg, again from the outside face. Before drilling the associated pilot holes in the triangle, reassemble the coat stand and mark in pencil on the triangle either side of each leg, where it rests against that side of the triangle. In theory, the holes in the triangle should be in the (horizontal) centre of the side faces, but you may find they need to be a bit off-centre to avoid putting undue strain on the structure as a whole - much better to let the legs rest against the triangle where they want to be. Having marked the leg positions, place the jig between those lines and drill the 4mm pilot holes. Then enlarge them to suit the threaded inserts as before, and screw them in.

Countersink all 9 holes in the outside faces of the legs so that the screw heads will sit flush with the surface.

Having assembled my coat stand for the first time, I decided that it looked odd with the corners of the upper triangle sticking out between the legs. Instead, I trimmed them off, at the same 11^o angle as before, so that the truncated corners just protrude a short way beyond the legs but face slightly upwards. This created 3 new faces, each about 15-16mm wide at the top edge.

I then realised that this gave the possibility of making additional hanging space by inserting a hook into each of the new faces, or drilling them to take dowel pegs. I created a rendered image in Fusion 360 (see above) before choosing the peg option.

You'll need a length of oak dowel to do this, about 9-10mm diameter and 12cm long. I turned a dowel on a lathe, but it is possible to buy it. I then cut the dowel into three equal lengths and rounded one end of each with coarse sandpaper before smoothing the pegs with finer grit paper.

To drill holes for the pegs perpendicularly into the truncated faces, cut vertical slices off each end of one of the angled blocks you made in Step 10 so that you have two slim blocks, each with one square face and one angled at 11°. Now you can use them either side of the upper triangle to clamp it with a truncated face horizontal. Drill a hole perhaps 7-8mm deep in each of the three faces, the right size for the dowel to be a push fit. Shorten the dowel pegs if they stick out too far, then glue them in place.

Angle the foot of each leg so that it rests on a face rather than the inside edge. The angle to cut is (as always) 11^o. Just make sure you have each leg the right way up when you cut it, it's the inside edge that needs trimming off at an angle so that the outside edge can reach the ground too.

Before applying a finish, check whether your machine screws need cutting to length, then you can be doing that while the finish is drying. Try screwing one of the legs to the tripod – assuming you drilled all the holes in the tripod and triangle to the same depth, testing a single screw should be enough. If it hits the base of the hole before the head is flush with the surface, then measure how much needs to come off and mark all the screws at that length. Wind a couple of nuts onto each one in turn, locked against each other so that you can hold the screw in a vice while you cut off the end with a Dremel or a hacksaw. Unscrew the nuts one at a time to clean up the thread, then re-check that screw’s length is right before shortening the others.

That done, it's a good idea to make permanent marks on the mating faces of the 3 legs, the 3 arms of the tripod and the 3 sides of the upper triangle, so that you always know how to assemble it again when you've taken it apart. The traditional way to do this is to burn in one, two or three dots where they'll be hidden on each surface, ie next to the screw holes. I did it with a soldering iron, but a nail heated in a gas flame would work, or you could use ink. Then you can rub off and/or sand away any remaining pencil marks before applying 2 or 3 coats of the wood finish of your choice, eg Danish oil or linseed. I used Danish and then gave it a coat of clear wax afterwards for a satin finish. When it’s dry, screw it all together.

The tripod is strong enough to take umbrellas, bags and such like. If you want more hanging space than the three arms and three optional pegs provide, you could screw a hook, or even a double- or triple-armed hook, to the underside of the triangle.