bend wood chair-2010 spring material class

My material final: Taiwanese style Bending Chair.


Sketch: the original design was longer, and more difficult to make.
Consider the ergonomics and limited time I have,
Rando helped me to change the design little bit.
To meet the standard of a comfortable chair,
the seat has to be 17"deep and 17"high.
The back of the chair should be a 5 degree slope.


The first mock-up was done before I changed the design.
After confirm all the details of the design,
I made a full-sized mock up out of card board.


The instructor helped me to make a fence to cut the bending part.
Each cut has to have the same interval to the others.
Another tool I used is vertical mills.
It is nice to have it cutting the patten I have,
the outcome can be accurate.


To make the bend, I have to cut the plywood evenly and deep enough.
Better using flexible plywood like birch.
The trial plywood I used was given by an instructor(the lower picture).
The ply was very nice, so the cut can be clean.
However, when I bought another piece of plywood to make the finish,
I didn't notice that the ply was not good enough (like the upper picture)
so it tend to crack. To cover up the flaw, I need to veneer it afterward.
P.S.The crack can actually be avoided, even with the bad plywood.
Just tape down a piece of MDF on the table saw, then the cut will be perfect.


The parts, ready to be assembled.
(The upper picture was the supporting part of the chair,
but the design didn't correlate to the pattern on the back of the chair,
so I redesigned it later.)


With the help of the instructor, I assembled the pieces
by using wood glue, nails and staples.
The gluing process makes me very nervous
cuz the glue drys fast. I have to do it very quick.


I cut a piece of leftover to fill in the gap of dado cut.
I also made 2 wood nail cap to cover up the holes on for the nails.



After assembled the chair, I started to do the finish up process.
I used bondo to fill the gap.This process was really time consuming and annoying,
because the bondo was too sticky to go into the gaps and it stinks.
I had to apply a lot then scrape it again and again until the bondo went into the gap.


Time to veneer it. I only veneered the inside of the bending part,
where the flaw existed. I could veneer the whole chair,
but since it was really hard to veneer the bending also veneer
was fxxking expensive, I didn't do that.
I cut the veneer into a good shape, then applied it on the chair with wood glue.
I trimmed the extra veneer off with a knife and iron the veneer again \
to make it really well and flat.


Eventually, the final touch!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I sanded it with sand paper, lower to higher number.
Then sanded in 3 layers of water-base finish.
(If I had time, I would do more layers.
But it was 3 o'clock in the morning before the final critic...>"<)


My final presentation!!(Time to go to sleep...)


My final chair and my midterm portfolio book.