Chair Bodging

In September, myself and three of my friends went chair bodging in Gloucestershire for six days. It was good fun, and involved the use of a pole lathe, shaving horse and various niche hand tools. The wood used for the legs and bracing is ash, and the seat is poplar. I decided to make a variation of an armchair, and with some resistance came to terms with the fact it was never going to be perfect.

Paul Hayden greenwood courses

its been a while...

During summer I spent 5 weeks travelling around Thailand and Vietnam. Heres some things that caught my eye.

Metal Spinning in Milan

I reckon the best thing I saw at Milan was this man metal spinning. We stumbled across this man in in a workshop in Zona Tortona, the process was really mesmerising. He kindly spun a small brass vessel and gave it to me, the vast amount of tools he had to achieve different effects was really impressive. He produced quite intricate decorative pieces in this workshop, for example pieces for churches.

Bronze Casting

Here are a couple of photos of bronze casting that I watched some fine art students do in the workshop a couple of weeks ago. It is such a mesmerising and thorough process, that I can't wait to have a go at!

Continental Tyres

Our current project is a promotional product for Continental Tyres. They require us to focus on safety, and family. We have taken the family orintated values of the brand and applied this to swimming, through the creation of a swim kit for families that makes the experience of getting changed slighty less stressful and more organised. I have currently been experimenting with casting rubber in the workshop, until I have some snaps of this heres a few images of the Continental factory in Hannover which I was lucky enough to visit!

http://www.conti-online.com/generator/www/uk/en/continental/automobile/general/home/index_en.html

Teatime

I have currently been working on a project around the living room. From this I have been observing interaction in this room, I focused in particular on tea and the ritual surrounding making it. I wanted to encourage the use of a teapot and loose tea in order to create a more social situatuion, as opposed to one person in the kitchen making numerous mugs of tea from a kettle using tea bags. In British cuture tea drinking is a common thing yet no one seems to have time to do it properly. So many people choose to drink tea on the go from a cardboard cup as they have such busy schedules, rather than taking a brief break to socialize with their friends and family.

With a teapot it forces people to be together, I have been using a teapot for the past month. I have observed and recorded why people opt for the kettle and teabag over the tea pot. I have concluded it is due to the effort of getting the teapot and milk jug out along with cleaning it. I have created an elongated tea strainer and a lid that houses this and a spoon reducing mess and keeping everything neat along with eliminating the chore of cleaning the loose leaves out of the pot.

These images show my development process and prototypes.

The Structure of weave

I'm currently exploring weave and its structural properties with the aim of creating a functional product that reflects the characteristics of the material. I have currently been using chair cane and lapping cane, the strength of this process interests me in the form of joints, I feel this could fit in with a minimal product, rather than the obvious, an intricate basket.

Gods Eye

Three way binding

Transom Knot

American Rafter Lashing