Ikea Hack: The Frosta Diy Stitching Pony

[josh3112]

Hi guys. First post here so I thought I'd put up something useful I've done.

Made myself a stitching pony because:

1) close to impossible to find here

2) they're not cheap online - closest would be Tandy's AUD$44.99 option, which would cost a lot more because of (3)

3) shipping something that's not cheap to south east asia is also not cheap.

So I was sitting down on the sofa one evening and was thinking of this when I turned my head and saw the stool:

It's a Frosta stool, AUD$14.99 in oz but just over US$9 where I am.

Here's the UK site, they're 8 pounds. These things do not show up in the US Ikea site in plain unfinished form: they only show up as a yellow painted USD$19.99 option.

Looking at the legs, I could immediately see a pony in my head. So I began handsawing stuff.

Testing with some scrap wood at the jaws.

I realised that a single leg would be insufficient, it needed to be wider.

Test mockup of the whole thing:

Next day, I was at the office, where I'd left my drill. Screwed 2 legs together, and attached the wood jaw.

Then glued a piece of crappy nubuck on it.

Used the scraps from the leg as the base. This turned out to be a good idea as the pre-drilled holes lined up perfectly with the round base (not just where they were meant to line up, too - the base had pre-drilled holes that allowed the assembly to be mounted at the edge or at the centre)

Made a dowel to line the arms up when they came together. Snug fit.

Hinge assembly, with the whole thing mounted in the centre of the base.

All done. Drillwork was a bit messier than I'd like, but I was eyeballing pretty much everything as I didn't really have the time to do clean work. But the whole thing functions as expected, which is kinda nice. Right now it's held by a clamp, until I can find a wing nut or a knob that fits. Sitting on the round base is not that uncomfortable and it seats pretty much upright at the correct height, and allows me to angle the whole thing a bit to the left or right.

Total cost was around USD$15, which includes the hinges and screws. This build utilises 90% of the Frosta parts, the only thing discarded was 2x 6" leg cutoffs and 2x 1" leg cutoff. Total time taken was probably 2 hours.

You'd need a saw, a drill, leather for the jaws, hinges (strap or normal) and a variety of screws.

Hope this helps someone somewhere out there.

Edited August 25, 2014 by josh3112

[RavenAus]

That's a really good hack, brilliant work

[howie696]

Very clever!!!

[Wishful]

Good use of available resouces. Turned out nice.

[billybopp]

That's really awesome. I REALLY love the creativity that folks on here show us in making and modifying tools. Now I wonder if IKEA sells some sort of bench that could turn your invention into a full-blown horse!?

Bill

[InfiniteChain]

Wow! I just might have to look into this. I posted a thread about the necessity of having a stitching pony and someone referred me to this thread. Kudos!

[King's X]

That is truly a beautiful hack! Nice job though you could have saved a bit more with just one hinge.....unless you are stitching a whole elephant. Either way, you won the best hack star in my books. Thanks for sharing!

[cradom]

Nice. What are you using as a clamp?