Off the trailNumber 06Object making

Bow Chair

Bent plywood and CNC-milled parts, built for comfort and to last.

Kind: Furniture
Made with: Traditional wood bending, CNC milling, a lot of clamps
Material: Laminated plywood

A low wooden chair with two tall bent-plywood bows for legs, casting a shadow on a brick wall

Object making

Furniture, ceramics and panels from three years in Woodbury's digital fabrication lab. Mostly plywood, clay, and a CNC mill.

Two bows of bent plywood carry a milled seat. The traditional technique does the bending; the machine does the shaping.

A plywood blank clamped on a CNC bed, the first passes cut — The seat blank on the mill.

The seat milled to shape, still on the machine bed — Milled to shape.

A thin plywood template pinned to a cloth with coloured pins — Templates for the bows.

Bent plywood bows standing in a workshop, waiting for assembly — The bows, bent.

A laminated bow held in a row of clamps while the glue sets — Glue-up.

The finished chair from the side on a concrete floor — Assembled.

The chair from the front against a brick wall

Close-up where a bow meets the seat, showing the plywood layers

Close-up of the seat's milled edge and the grain of the bow