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How to Make a Valet Stand

Red floral dress and gray suit on wooden hangers

The Peacock bedroom will be much tidier now that Mitch has made a pair of silent butlers to keep their clothes off the floor.

Simple wooden easel with a three-legged design.

A different approach

While the majority of the furniture I make is carefully thought out and modelled, and I produce plans to work from, on this occasion I decided to work entirely from an idea in my head. There were no measurements of dimensions or angles, no finished sizes or cross sections, they would all evolve as the build took place (what’s more, I wouldn’t use rulers or protractors either). One of the main reasons for this was that I just didn’t know what the rough timber would reveal as I broke it apart.

Wooden clothes valet stand for coats and trousers.

Making the stand

Woodworker using hand plane on project.
A draw knife and fore-plane were used to square two sides of the stock, which was then marked out to yield the four main uprights. The stock length was considered sufficient to support a lady’s dress above the ground, seeing as one stand would be for my wife
Sawing wood on a workbench with tools.
The uprights of the stands were made from a pair of book matched pieces, rip sawn at the bench
Woodworker carving a groove in wooden board.
Two pairs were ‘nested’ within the stock, and roughly marked out with a pencil gauge …
Person sawing wood on a workbench indoors.
… and separated by sawing
Craftsman using woodworking tools in workshop.
Most of this rip cut was straight and easy going, but to follow the flare I had to use my bow saw, which was slower progress
Woodworking bench with tools and wood shavings.
The uprights were cleaned up, removing slight wind, but only eyeballed for symmetry in their pairs. The book matched figure is never quite symmetrical, and will reflect light differently, so a visual match is more reliable in my opinion
Carpenter splitting wood using a wedge and mallet.
The other parts were riven and sawn from higher up the butt. The wood was quite dry by now, not ideal for working with the froe, and neither of the top rails split as planned
Carpenter shaving wood with hand plane tool.
The central cross rail ties the main uprights and rear leg together. Its main face lies in the same plane as the uprights, but to receive a substantial tenon from the rear leg, it needs to have a somewhat triangular cross-section
Woodworking tools and materials on a workbench.
The length and angles were all judged by eye, while clamping the uprights to a board and leaning it back against a batten representing the rear leg
Close-up of a miter lap wood joint on table.
Stout tenons were formed on the ends of the cross rails. These were left thick and long, and would be fitted once mating mortises were chopped
Carpenter chiseling wood in a workshop.
With the maximum tenon size determined, mortises were chopped in the main uprights. It just so happened that a knot lay behind one of these, and, forgetting it was there, I managed to break it out and had to patch the rear – remember to look before you chop
Measuring and marking wood with compass and clamps.
With the tenons fitted, after paring the cheeks, the assembly was clamped together at a pleasing rake and the tenon shoulders scribed with a pair of compasses. These were then sawn and pared for a tight fit
Craftsman using chisel on wood for precise joinery.
Tenons were next prepared on the top of the uprights. These would hold the top rails for the stands, and were cut plumb to ease assembly (if they were cut in-line with the uprights, then once the cross rail was fitted the tenons would be angled towards each other, and not line up with the top rail mortises)
Woodworking clamps securing bent wood piece.
Riving of the top rails hadn’t gone so well, and there wasn’t enough width to form a sculpted hanger. To overcome this, I created laminations for them both. One had a piece glued under each end, while the other had a curved section cut out from below and glued above
Close-up of hands wood-carving with a plane tool.
Shaping of the top rails was mostly completed with a block plane and spokeshave, and files in the tighter areas
Marking wooden joints for precise cutting.
 Mortises were chopped in the cross rails, to receive tenons on the tapered rear legs
Woodworking tools and a piece of cut wood.
My desire had been to prepare a bent lamination to act as the trouser rail, but the stock just wouldn’t yield any straight grained material suitable to cut thin plys from that would survive such a tight bend. The solution I decided on was to form the rail from a length of aluminium flat bar, wrapped in the wood
Woodworker using a hand plane tool on woodwork project.
This took delicate ploughing and chopping to create the cavities …
Woodworking clamps securing glued project for drying.
… two separate glue-ups, and then careful shaping with rasps and files to complete
Close-up of wooden ladder rungs on black background.
After all that effort, it was very satisfying to slide it into the one through mortise and one stub mortise of the uprights
Woodworking project with clamps in a workshop.
The main glue-up was simplicity itself, with just the cross rail requiring clamps to keep everything in shape. I left the rear legs, and the trouser rail, without glue; in use they hold themselves in place, and should we wish to move the stands they can be flat-packed

Conclusion

Working with character timber throws up many challenges, and working with limited stock can make finding solutions difficult. Not working from plans can be daunting, but frees you up to best utilise the materials you have. And what of the measurements? Angles were transferred from mock-ups and parts using a bevel gauge, and dimensions were transferred directly from part to part, or with dividers or pinch sticks.

The next time someone asks which measurement system I use, I’ll be pleased to say ‘imperial, metric or none at all’.

Further reading

Wood Restoration: a Cake Stand

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