Are you interested in bent lamination and other related things?

[Jim Becker]

This weekend, after watching a bunch of bass guitar videos from an entity named Lignum, I "binge watched" a whole bunch of their other videos that featured furniture and artistic things, many of which entailed bent lamination. Turns out the company does "yuge" architectural projects with bent lamination and the dude loves to leverage the technique...and often the scraps...to do very creative and functional work. It was thought provoking for me relative to some potential interesting future projects. Check out Lignum on the 'Tube (https://www.youtube.com/c/lignumchannel/featured) as well as the brief website (https://www.lignum-art.com/). Pretty inspiring work and some very kewel tools in the shop, such as the multi-blade oscillating re-saw and the multi-axis robots (CNC). (And for "big" watch the videos of the airport terminal roof/ceiling) He/they are based in Croatia.

Here's a chair design as a teaser...

https://static.wixstatic.com/media/d20152_e9173b4beac848c9b6b24c556eeb8528~mv2_d_6000 _4000_s_4_2.jpeg/v1/fill/w_1203,h_802,al_c,q_85,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01/d20152_e9173b4beac848c9b6b24c556eeb8528~mv2_d_6000 _4000_s_4_2.jpeg

[andrew whicker]

I'm definitely interested, especially in using my vacuum table for less extreme bends than above.

I worked with someone who used carbon fiber in his bends to make his wood sections thinner than could otherwise be done.

I like that chair design a lot. I'm not so sure about the fabric they used, but I like the wood part of it.

[Mike Kees]

Watched the video of the longue chair. Amazing . So many questions , what species of wood ? M.C. ? Looked like about 1/4'' thick strips. Wonder how long the project took in real time ? But yeah very inspiring. Best part was not a Festool in sight ...:D

[Ed Mitchell]

I'm with Mike -- that lounge chair build was great to watch. I was thinking 3-4 mm strips, but my eyesight isn't that great. At first I felt, "Maybe I could do this, too" until the giant robot arm started cutting out all those parts -- that was awesome, but also intimidating and put it into a league in which I do not play

[Jim Becker]

Watched the video of the longue chair. Amazing . So many questions , what species of wood ? M.C. ? Looked like about 1/4'' thick strips. Wonder how long the project took in real time ? But yeah very inspiring. Best part was not a Festool in sight ...:D

I believe they are using some kind of pine/softwood species for nearly all of their bending work, but some projects have oak or cherry like species if I'm not mistaken. There are CE labels on a lot of their beam stock...I suspect that everything is KD.

They use a Festo (Festool) OF2000 router in many of the videos. :) But there are a variety of Bosch, Makita and other small electrics in play in their projects.

I think that most of us could use the same techniques to make stuff including making the "mold" right on top of a piece of sheet goods, starting with drawing the final shape and then creating the forms and clamping cauls, etc. Making the layers might be slower because of resawing one at a time, but it's still very doable. I'm thinking of trying something small scale artsy-fartsy just to see how it goes.

[roger wiegand]

My very first woodworking project was a bent lamination-- being young and stupid I bent three one quarter inch plies of curly maple into an 11 inch circle to build a banjo pot. I'm glad I didn't know it wasn't really possible. (Fairbanks/Vega did it commercially back in the early 20th century, but not with heavily figured hard maple; they also had serious hydraulic bending machines) Having access to a big autoclave helped. I've subsequently made a variety of other things much less extreme-- skis for a Klondike Derby sled, table legs. I find it a fun, but nerve wracking technique. I also spent more time making MDF bending forms than the actual furniture.

Given that my taste in furniture now runs strongly to Arts and Crafts particularly Greene and Greene I don't currently have any projects in the pipeline.

[Paul Haus]

I've probably made 200-400 U shaped glued up leg stretchers for stools for a local bar over the years. Figuring out all the nuances of it was the hard part, that's what took the most time. Once it was all working it became relative easy to get going again as long as I could find the right wood to make them out of. If you want some unusal shapes, glue-lam or steaming is a good option as long as you can get the right wood to start.

[Dan Friedrichs]

That lounge chair video was cool but bizarre in some ways!

[Jim Becker]

Yes, some of the built up "pixel" designs are "unique", but admirable in many ways because they take what can essentially be scrap and turn it into something functional and different. The burning technique that includes charring and then sandblasting to soften the contours is interesting and especially effective in the softwood being used.

Folks may also notice that these folks made a very large percentage of their clamps, given their metal working capabilities, too. Those bar clamps used for bending are very stout and clearly have some clamping pressure available. Operating them with a pneumatic wrench doesn't hurt, either.

[Erik Loza]

Jim, you should ask Sam about the bent-lam project he did back in the Austin days. I believe it was legs for a bed (?). Edge-trimmed them on this giant sled he made for his MM24. I think I still have those photos.

Erik

[Joe Hendershott]

Very cool stuff there.

I've done quite a bit of bent lamination, mostly u shaped legs for benches. It's tedious and time consuming for sure. I usually make forms and use regular clamps. I tried a few in the vacuum bad but never could get everything just right. I've always used West epoxy as well, it's messy but the results are great. Can be tough to get a tight radius so I generally steamed even thin (3mm) strips and clamped them up dry for 30 minutes or so, then do the final glue up with the epoxy. Getting everything just right on the form makes the final trimming and sanding much easier. The first few had epoxy everywhere, which took forever to sand and trim.

Fun to do after a little trial and error.

[Mark Gibney]

Great video! Thanks Jim. I like how lo-fi (apart from that totally unexpected robot arm) and lived in his shop looks.

"I believe they are using some kind of pine/softwood species for nearly all of their bending work"
- hmm, I've never had any luck bending fir or pine around even the gentlest curves unless it's paper thin. Plus he softens the lignin with a heat gun so I would think it might be ash or similar?

[Mark Gibney]

By the way, the lounger is interesting, but design wise I don't find it attractive. It's like the skeletal remains of an excavated giant snake.

[Joe Hendershott]

The chair is spruce. European Ash has been devastated by disease in recent years. Spruce is a common wood used in Eastern Europe. When we lived there spruce was about the same cost as ash here.

[Jim Becker]

By the way, the lounger is interesting, but design wise I don't find it attractive. It's like the skeletal remains of an excavated giant snake.

Yea, even if the specific project and/or style isn't to our individual taste, there's still a lot to learn from seeing how it was done.

And on the shop, yes, there's a lot of "comfort dust" there for sure, but after watching a lot of their videos, for what they use the space for, it's pretty efficient. They do have larger space available for some of the big stuff to do pre-assembly, etc. I appreciate some of the specialty vintage tools for sure that play very much in to a lot of the work, including that multi-blade oscillating resaw thing I mentioned previously, as well as the "board lengthener" :) and some tools that do horizontal slotting to hide steel brackets used in some of the construction projects. Kewel "fit for purpose" tooling. (sometimes scary, however)

[Mike King]

I'm with Mike -- that lounge chair build was great to watch. I was thinking 3-4 mm strips, but my eyesight isn't that great. At first I felt, "Maybe I could do this, too" until the giant robot arm started cutting out all those parts -- that was awesome, but also intimidating and put it into a league in which I do not play

That's just a mechanism to save time. You can do the same thing by making a template and pattern routing the pieces.

[Steve Demuth]

I love bent wood, laminated or otherwise.

I have been making baskets of late from a combination of steam bent hardwood, with laminated structural components. This is a garden trug I made for my wife. Air dried, steam bent, quarter sawn walnut and red elm for the slats. The structural rim is steam bent 1/8" red elm that is then glue laminated to get the dimension needed. The combination of curves and lamination makes for an incredibly rigid and tough basket that is feather light.

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[Dan Friedrichs]

That's beautiful, Steve!

[Mark Gibney]

I love those baskets Steve, beautiful.
These should have their own thread.

[Christopher Charles]

Agree about the baskets and that they should have a thread of their own!

Best,
Chris

[Steve Demuth]

Here's another. Thought I had uploaded this one in the first post, but somehow got the basket full of veggies instead.

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