Folding Clothes Tree: Arms Pivoted Between Spaced Uprights, Held Level by Stop-Blocks (Bidwell, 1905)

"The upright portion is, when completed, of truss or bridge like construction; hence, though light, is very strong."

Cut four hardwood uprights (his 2) to the height wanted. Join them into a square open column with short stop-blocks (his 3) glued and screwed between them at intervals, leaving a gap between each pair of uprights wide enough for an arm to swing in.

Cut the arms (his 4) from hardwood strip and round their outer ends. Bore each near its inner end and hang it on a bolt through the pair of uprights, his pivot 5, so the short tail below the pivot (his 4a) catches under the stop-block above it when the arm is swung out level. Place the arms so they balance one another round the column.

Make a cross base of hardwood (his base 1, "of any suitable form") and fix the column upright in its centre.

Swing the arms out until their tails stop under the blocks; hang coats and hats. Lift each arm and swing it down along the column to fold the tree away.

**Moses Bidwell** of Brooklyn, US 805,051, dated 21 November 1905, filed 11 April 1905. He claimed "a clothes-tree comprising a skeleton-like body composed of a plurality of separate upright members, stop-blocks at frequent intervals between said members spacing them apart and rigidly connecting the same, swinging arms pivoted near their ends to said upright members adjacent to said stop-blocks". He gives no sizes or wood: the hardwood, four uprights, all sizes, bolts and the cross base are ours.