PRODUCT BRIEF
The product was made during a one week long wood workshop 'Introduction to Hand Skills'. The goal of this project was to use any traditional two member wood joinery technique to make a functional artifact thereby gaining an understanding of basic hand skills needed to work with wood. Inspired from a director's chair, the stool uses wooden joineries clubbed with a foldable mechanism to be light-weight structure and maintain strength. Hand skills such as sanding, filing, bevelling and chiseling were used to lift the aesthetics of the product.
PROCESS
• Research: secondary research for types of joineries and simple products that use joineries.
• Insight generation: reviewing products and selecting a functional product
• Technical Drawing: 3D scaled-down sketch of object with final proportions and types of joints
• Prototype: Scaled prototype with sun-board to understand and solve any technical challenges
• Making: Constructing the final product with wood from scratch
• Testing: Checking the strength and the functioning of the product
RESEARCH ON WOODWORKING JOINTS
Tenon and Mortise joint was chosen for its simplicity, clean finish and strength of interlocking.
Taking inspiration from a director's chair, me and my partner ideated mechanisms that would enable foldability of the chair and the use of the chosen wood-working joint.
TECHNICAL DRAWINGS
3 dimensional sketches of the product were drawn to understand the proportions, scale and the working mechanism of the stool. Mechanisms for fold-ability were explored through multiple iterations. The measurements written are of the original scale.
WORKING PROTOTYPE
Working of the adjustable-height mechanism is explored in this prototype. Materials used were sun-board, nuts and bolts, bamboo sticks and adhesive(fevicol). Scale of the prototype is made in the same scale as that of the original stool
Technical Aspects of the Stool
•Cross pieces should move in one direction while they are attached to each other to keep them separated at a fixed distance.
•Horizontal pieces on the crosses hold the 'X' in place.
•Fixing the horizontal at three levels enables different adjustable heights of the chair.
•All the joineries shall not interrupt the foldable mechanism of the chair.
Technical Challenges Faced
•Stability at each level of the chair’s height should be maintained for complete functionality of the chair.
•The mechanism that is used to fix the height of the chair must be strong enough to take the weight of an average person.
•Seating cloth shall also be adjustable in correspondence with the adjustable height of the chair.
MAKING
1. WOOD PLANNING: Used Red and White Sal wood as it is of medium density. For the first experience, working with Sal wood is easier as the grains are neither too soft nor hard to cut and chisel. The dimensions and number of pieces of wood were planned as above and brought.
HAND TOOLS USED: planes, hand saws, chisels, mallets, marking gauges and sander papers.
2. CUTTING WOODEN PIECES: The wooden pieces were cut to the required dimensions
3. FINISHING AND POLISHING: All the pieces have been given bevelled edges by using a sander machine and then sandpaper (50 and 100 grit) for smooth and fine finishing. Then, the pieces were wax coated and tanned using shoe polish.
4. ASSEMBLING AND CONSTRUCTING: The joints used for assembling the parts are Mortise and Tenon, Butt joint, Nuts and Bolts for movable joints.
5. STITCHING THE SEAT: For the seat, a thin sponge was layered in-between textured fabric and stitched in intervals to form ridges that hold the sponge in place and equally distribute weight that falls on it. To place and hold the fabric on the stool, holes were punched in the fabric ends and washers were threaded and stitched onto the holes. The fabric ends were taken around the stool's base pieces and thick thread was passed through them to fix it in place.
The way the thick thread was tied through the holes determined the stability and the strength of the fabric to take weight. The parallel diagonal lines pattern could only take weight in one direction. The straight thread passing through holes could keep the fabric in place but did not go around the base wooden stick and hence, wasn't stable. A mix of both these tying patterns emerged to be stable and strong.
CAPABILITIES DEVELOPED
• Using two member joinery techniques
• Engage with tools, techniques and hands on making skills.
• Develop an ability to plan - materials and resources, optimization, estimation, safe practices and time management.
• To develop respect towards material and the optimal ways in which it can be used.
FINAL PRODUCT
USER TESTING
With a 10 year old girl and a 19 year old girl (me!)
