Core77

Randy Weersing's Zig Zag Chair: Three Pieces of Plywood and Many, Many Cuts

By Rain Noe - May 24, 2012

in Furniture Design

This Zig Zag Chair, made from just three pieces of high grade maple plywood, is by Oregon-based furniture designer Randy Weersing. According to the description it's light, strong, and ergonomically comfortable.

Weersing, if you're reading this: I hope you rigged up some kind of ingenious jig to quickly cut that main surface out with a power tool. Because otherwise, this looks like the kind of thing where your girlfriend dumps you after you gave that relationship everything you had and then you retreat into your shop and come out two months later with a beard, blowing sawdust off of this chair, and when someone asks you how you made it you wordlessly hold up a hand saw and stare off into the distance.

o

Favorite This
Q
4

Comment

Comments

Randy Weersing

12 years ago

Z

Z

Reply

I haven't perfected Ken's method yet, but hope to before I run out of fingers. Actually prototyping was done with various jigs on a table saw. Now using CNC for other iterations.
!Report as spam
Ken_K

12 years ago

Z

Z

Reply

CNC - bah. A real artisan would throw the plywood into the air, and with 50 quick zorro-like slashes from his or her 2 supersharp Japanese saw blades -- one in each hand for the left and right cuts -- would have it ready before it hit the ground.
!Report as spam
Lucas R Adams

12 years ago

Z

Z

Reply

I've seen a presentation on this method of 'machining' plywood to make it flexible, quite remarkable, and id say these guys: http://www.dukta.com/en/productsen/kassetten.html have been at it for the longest time.

They have a custom built cnc machine with multiple circular blades in a linear arrangement that form the numerous cuts.
!Report as spam
OscarTheFuzz

12 years ago

Z

Z

Reply

I would have assumed these are straight cuts and then the ply is 'stretched' after....
!Report as spam