Wanderer tripod stool

We are space constrained in our FJ Cruiser so when we went looking for camping chairs we settled on these little Wanderer brand tripod stools from BCF for $14.95. They are cheap, but are they nasty?

I like the idea of these stools because they are compact and we are both considerably under 90kg. They are also a little more comfy than those little four legged folding ones.

So how did they go? Big tick for compact size and ease of storage. Big tick for price, because if they were duds I wouldn’t feel too bad about tossing them!

We took them on our 6500km trip around Western Australia over nearly 3 weeks and they lasted the distance, sort of. The top canvas seat fell apart but the frames were good. Here is one after the trip:

The underside is all good.

What I decided to do was give them a new lease of life and replace the top with a piece of leather. But first of all, I made up a triangular support out of 38mm webbing material which I assembled on the sewing machine (triple stitched!) and also sewed in some support pockets to go over the legs.

Then I cut and hand sewed the leather seat and glued the harness onto the leather. After that, I used a few aluminium rivets to hold the seat assembly on to the legs.

The finished product looks pretty good and I think will last more than 2 weeks.

So, overall, they were cheap, not really that comfy, handy for space constrained travellers but not overly durable. I have definitely overfilled on cost, with materials about $20 per stool and a fair bit of labour, but I reckon these cool looking tripod chairs ought to last a lot longer.