Personal Development Project

After creating the rabbit chair from the gallery project, I have been enamoured with creating curves on wood. I have read books and articles about wood bending techniques, lamination, steaming and kerf-bending. 

I decided to first explore the kerfing technique of solid wood bending that used to produce guitars and boats because I would like to use the kerf as part of a decoration and discovering how wood can be made to perform in novel ways by bending and twisting behaviour of wood through kerf making. 

I have designed various kerf patterns and used band saw to cut pieces of MDF wood to experiment how the wood bends. As MDF is a medium-density fiberboard, there is no wood grain, which makes it easier to bend. However, in the middle stage of the project, I use solid timber to produce my kerf patterns. I have to take the grain direction into account, as wood are more likely to break when bend against the grain. I then also tried to cut larger kerf, when the wood bends, the kerf will form a triangle, I pour in coloured resin to make the kerf decorative. Through these experimentations, I found out the larger and the more the number the kerf, the more the wood can bend. 

Mass production project

 Mass Production Project - Making Process

This project aims at mass produce and my design utilise the moulding technique for mass production. The coat hooks is in an abstract form that look like tree branches are reaching into the room, a product that connects outdoor to indoors.

 3D print after done the file in 3D Rhinoceros.

 Mixing the plaster for pouring into the hole, as it is very fragile.

 Making a mould out of it.

Visualisation

Gallery project

First Project done! Yeah!! :))

 It is a chair for children or as a decorative item in children’s room. The design was inspired by Eames elephant chair and it is based on an origami of a rabbit.

First Post

I am Stephanie Chow,
curently studying Decorative Arts at Nottingham Trent University.

This is my first design blog :)