@@ -1,14 +1,18 @@
 # Tavern stool
 
-A showcase piece, not an example. Procedural tavern stool (lathed round
-seat, turned splayed legs, tenoned stretchers, iron ferrule cups) then
-the shipped pipeline: unique-cell UVs, Cycles high-to-low normal bake,
-LOD chain, convex collider, Unity glTF export.
-
-Legs are one loft per leg, not stacked cones. Ferrules are vertical cups
-the foot drops into; wood ends above the cup so a splayed cone does not
-sawtooth through the wall. Stretchers are classified as compact rails,
-not the seat disc.
+A showcase piece, not an example. A procedural tavern stool: a lathed round
+seat, turned splayed legs, tenoned stretchers at two heights, and iron
+ferrules on level treads. Then the shipped pipeline: unique-cell UVs, a
+Cycles high-to-low normal bake, an LOD chain, a convex collider and a Unity
+glTF export.
+
+Legs are one loft per leg, not stacked cones. Each foot is an iron ferrule
+sleeve on the leg's own axis, its inner wall a named grip (1.2 mm) inside the
+leg. The sleeve's raked bottom rim is buried in a level iron tread, and the
+leg ends inside the sleeve, above the tread. The first build ended every leg
+3 mm above a vertical ring on the floor, with a 1 mm air gap around the foot.
+The front-back and side stretchers sit at different heights, so their tenons
+do not meet inside the leg. Each member has its own wood tone and grain.
 
 It asserts **budget conformance** of the generated result. It does not
 witness an API contract. "It rendered without error" is not a check.
@@ -21,19 +25,31 @@ witness an API contract. "It rendered without error" is not a check.
 
 ## Budgets
 
-Declared as named constants; every gate **recomputes** from the mesh,
-materials, UVs, evaluated LOD, collider, or export file.
+Declared as named constants. Every gate **recomputes** its value from the
+mesh, materials, UVs, evaluated LOD, collider or export file.
 
 | Axis | Declared | Measured (4.5.11 / 5.1.2 / 5.2.1) |
 | --- | --- | --- |
-| Base triangles | 2300–3200 | 2528 / 2528 / 2528 |
+| Base triangles | 2750–3350 | 3040 / 3040 / 3040 |
 | LOD1 ratio | 0.32–0.62 of base | 0.5000 / 0.5000 / 0.5000 |
-| LOD2 ratio | 0.10–0.35 of base | 0.2199 / 0.2199 / 0.2199 |
-| Materials | exactly 2 distinct; ≥200 wood, ≥48 metal faces | 2 slots; 1168 / 256 |
+| LOD2 ratio | 0.10–0.35 of base | 0.2197 / 0.2197 / 0.2197 |
+| Materials | exactly 2 distinct; ≥200 wood, ≥48 metal faces | 2 slots; 1168 / 576 |
 | UVs | in `0..1`, AABB overlap ≤ 1e-5 | in range, overlap 0 |
-| Outer AABB | (0.341, 0.341, 0.470) m ± 0.015 | (0.3400, 0.3400, 0.4700), zmin 0 |
-| Collider tris | ≤ 640 | 396 |
-| Export | written, size > 0 | 215912 / 215912 / 215900 bytes |
+| Outer AABB | (0.341, 0.341, 0.470) m ± 0.015 | (0.3406, 0.3406, 0.4700), zmin 0 |
+| Collider tris | ≤ 640 | 468 |
+| Export | written, size > 0 | 259676 / 259676 / 259668 bytes |
+
+Base triangles rose from **2528 to 3040** in the second quality pass, and the
+band moved from 2300–3200 to 2750–3350. Each foot gained a tread, and the
+sleeves are walled on both ends. The bake went from 256 px to 1024 px, and
+its cage extrusion from 60 mm to 10 mm. See the bake texel budget below.
+
+DECIMATE COLLAPSE triangle counts are **not** identical across series. The
+gate is a ratio band, not an exact count. Bake pixels are stochastic; the
+gate is `has_data` plus operator `FINISHED`, not byte-identity. Construction
+is closed-form and member tones are seeded, so repeated runs on one binary
+print identical measurements. Export byte counts may differ by a few bytes
+across series.
 
 ### Hygiene
 
@@ -48,35 +64,41 @@ Recomputed from the generated mesh, not asserted about the script.
 | N-gons | 0 | 0 |
 | Coplanar disjoint face pairs | 0 | 0 |
 | Grounded: `zmin` | within 1e-4 of 0 | 0.0000 |
-| Named supports: 4 ferrule cups | each `zmin` ≤ 1e-3 | 4, cup_z 0.00000 |
+| Named supports: 4 treads (plus 4 sleeves) | each `zmin` ≤ 1e-3 | 8, cup_z 0.00000 |
 | Seat | 0.340 m dia × 0.470 m high ± 0.02 | 0.3400 × 0.4700 |
 
-### Joint fit and seat
+### Joint fit, feet and bake
 
 | Axis | Declared | Measured (all three) |
 | --- | --- | --- |
 | Stretcher-leg BVH gap | ≤ 0.008 m | 0.00000 |
-| Ferrule inner clearance (`r_wood − r_in`) | −0.005 .. 0.000 m | −0.00125 |
+| Ferrule grip (exit 18): leg radius where the sleeve wraps it, less the sleeve's inner radius, radially about the leg's own axis; 4 sleeves | 0.0006–0.0025 m | 0.00120 |
+| Foot stack (exit 20): leg end above its tread's top / sleeve bottom buried below it; 4 legs, 4 treads | ≥ 0.0005 m / ≥ 0.001 m | 0.00113 / 0.00943 |
+| Bake texel density (exit 21): smallest UV cell in baked texels | ≥ 12 px | 22.43 px (1024 px bake) |
 
-DECIMATE COLLAPSE triangle counts are **not** identical across series —
-the gate is a ratio band, not an exact count. Bake pixels are
-stochastic; the gate is `has_data` plus operator `FINISHED`, not
-byte-identity. Construction uses no RNG. Export byte counts may differ
-by a few bytes across series.
+At 256 px the bake gave each of the 1,744 UV cells about 6 px. The hero then
+sampled the neighbouring cells' normals across cell borders, which showed as
+dark slivers on the legs above the ferrules.
 
 ### Falsifiers
 
-Each violates one named budget. All seven were run on 4.5.11, 5.1.2 and
-5.2.1 and returned the same code on each.
+Each violates one named budget. All were run on 4.5.11, 5.1.2 and 5.2.1 and
+returned the same code on each.
 
 | Flag | Budget violated | Exit |
 | --- | --- | --- |
 | `--skip-decimate` | LOD1 ratio band | 9 |
 | `--stray-vert` | loose vertex count is 0 | 15 |
 | `--lift-z` | bounding box `zmin` is 0 | 16 |
-| `--short-legs` | named ferrule cups at Z=0 | 16 |
+| `--short-legs` | named ferrule supports at Z=0 | 16 |
 | `--float-stretchers` | stretcher-leg join | 17 |
-| `--pipe-ferrule` | ferrule inner-clearance band | 18 |
+| `--pipe-ferrule` | ferrule grip (a pipe ring on the tread; measured −0.00011) | 18 |
+| `--sink-legs` | foot stack (leg ends 10 mm into the tread; measured −0.00887) | 20 |
+| `--low-bake` | bake texel density (256 px bake; measured 5.61 px) | 21 |
+
+`--pipe-ferrule` keeps the treads, so the triangle band and the envelope
+cannot steal its failure. `--sink-legs` keeps the leg inside its sleeve, so
+the grip still passes.
 
 ## Run
 
@@ -88,6 +110,8 @@ blender --background --python tavern_stool.py -- --lift-z
 blender --background --python tavern_stool.py -- --short-legs
 blender --background --python tavern_stool.py -- --float-stretchers
 blender --background --python tavern_stool.py -- --pipe-ferrule
+blender --background --python tavern_stool.py -- --sink-legs
+blender --background --python tavern_stool.py -- --low-bake
 blender --background --python tavern_stool.py -- --output stool.png
 ```
 
@@ -97,7 +121,7 @@ Smoke passes no flags.
 
 File-local. `9` is a valid check code. `10` is reserved for
 `gallery_framing.check_framing` on the `--output` path. `15`–`19` are the
-hygiene and joint-fit family.
+hygiene and joint-fit family. `20` and `21` are this piece's own.
 
 | Code | Meaning |
 | --- | --- |
@@ -117,7 +141,9 @@ hygiene and joint-fit family.
 | 13 | Export file missing or empty |
 | 14 | `--output` produced no file |
 | 15 | Mesh hygiene: loose, non-manifold, zero-area, doubles, n-gons, z-fight |
-| 16 | Not grounded: bounding box `zmin` off 0, or a named ferrule cup floats |
+| 16 | Not grounded: bounding box `zmin` off 0, or a named ferrule support floats |
 | 17 | Joint fit: stretcher-leg gap |
-| 18 | Seat: ferrule inner-clearance band |
+| 18 | Ferrule grip out of band, or a sleeve missing (`--pipe-ferrule`) |
 | 19 | Seat diameter or height off the stated real-world size |
+| 20 | Foot stack: leg end below its tread's top, or sleeve not buried (`--sink-legs`) |
+| 21 | Bake texel density below floor (`--low-bake`) |