orepass

Reflecting on the seat design of the Bar Stool, I am troubled by the waste created by cutting the seat out of a block of wood. It was a simple design in appearance, a curved board, two jigs and a bandsaw to complete. The remnants were significant, wood from both the top and bottom that allowed the flat boards to become curved.

The Kitchen-Guitar stool also has a curved seat, but of a very different design. Thin sheets of plywood glued over a form. Let’s take a look.

First step was to make a form. It was a simple process of making five identical curves and attaching them to a board. I made a 1/2 plywood pattern and used the router table to duplicate the curve. Once complete I attached the curved boards to a piece of plywood. That was the easy part the difficult part was finding 1/8”plywood that would bend around the form. Eventually I found some at Rockler. It wasn’t cheap but i had no other option,

This is the first time that I have used a vacuum press to curve a board and I’ll put detail of what I used here. Needless to say I enjoyed the process and ended up with a nice form. 5 pieces of 1/8” plywood and 12 hours later and a curved seat appeared.

A little trimming and smoothing and the seat should be ready to go.