A Folding Wood Coat Rack

This is a project inspired to a similar object seen in a furniture fair.
Despite the old-style of this coat rack, the folding gear is in my opinion quite cool.
When the rack is closed its dimensions are very compact, you can keep it in the umbrella stand, and you can open it when your guests arrive.

To obtain four poles as legs I split two old wood bars in two pieces each.
I then found one sturdy wood block to use as central hinge.

The hinge design is the hardest part. The angle of the diagonal cuts will determine the width of the base when the coat rack is open. If you fail to determine this angle the rack will fail to hold up the coat, or it will be so wide to be awkward. Another parameter is the height of the hinge from the floor compared with the total height of the rack.

When I built my rack I made some test and I leaned the wood bars on the table to mark the angle on the hinge, now you can see a better calculation made for this instructable. In the drawing I showed different widths and different hinge heights, and you can also see the appearance of the rack in these cases. The first case is not feasible since the vertical line from a weight on the hook will fall out of the foot, but all the other cases are good, and in my opinion second and fourth are also nice. Third and fourth are probably more firm.

My rack is very near to the second case. You ccan also change total height and maintain the angle which I added near the hinge. This angle is between a vertical line and the open rod, and is the same angle you have to keep when you cut away a part of the hinge, as you see in the second drawing. The dimension marked as A is half width of the rods.

You can use a band saw to cut slices from the block, as described in the drawing. The angle will determine the opening of the rack base.

Perhaps a better way, and certainly a more precise solution to cut the hinge is to use a Japanese saw.
Choose the method you prefer.