Footstool for guitarists, parametrizable

A simple footstool for guitarists, build from three parts.

Standard adjustable footstools are cheap, but…

• I have personally found the slope of the top surface too big to be comfortable.
• They topple over too easily.
• They look flimsy and cheap.

This is my take at a footstool that is dimensioned to my preferences. The design is in OpenSCAD, and most measures can be adjusted with the OpenSCAD customizer. The STL files are for a stool that is 150 mm high at the heel and roughly 167 mm high at the toe (the slope of the top is 4 degrees).

Printing and postprocessing

I printed the top and bottom parts such that the dovetail opening faces upwards. That is, the top part is printed upside-down. This gives best quality of the dovetail surface.

The middle part is printed flat, for best strength. For the middle part, a brim is recommended. In fact, if you are using a “satin” textured sheet, I recommend printing all parts with a brim. Since the middle part has the dovetails printed sideways, you will either need supports, or print with a material that handles overhangs well. I recommend PLA.

Unless you have printed the middle part with supports, one side of the dovetail on the middle part will have sunk a little (the side that was printed with unsupported overhangs). You will need to file that side back into shape. If you printed with supports, you will also need to file the supported side of the dovetail to get its surface smooth.

This footstool is not foldable, but it was intended to be separable. I applied a small bit of grease to make assembling and disassembling the parts easier.

Update

The dovetail would slide too well when moving the foot that rests on this stool. That is, the footstool is prone to disassemble itself. In the updated design, I added small magnets at the end of the dovetails, to avoid this. See the circled parts in the picture: