What has happened since the last post? Quite a bit.
Even though I wanted to work with established furniture designers, Jonah Takagi's been super busy (and I've been sick when he's available), and Square Form did not like my lack of skills in metals. Therefore, I've been taking the summer to do my own work. I bought a wood lathe and have been graciously given a space to work in a family friend's basement.
I then got some wonderfully priced, quality lumber from C. P. Johnson Lumber in Elkwood, VA.
I'm going through a list of chairs that I've been wanting to design, beginning with a lounge chair that uses a straight piece of fabric for the back and seat simultaneously. This means that the strip has to wrap around the chair at specific angles in order to be straight and form the necessary parts of the chair.
I spent 26 hours on the lathe turning all of the pieces for the chair. The first couple parts took the longest, as this is the second time I've used a wood lathe with hand tools instead of a duplicator, but things have since sped up dramatically. I had to remake a leg today after a drilling mistake, and it only took a paltry half hour.
I'll have the chair glued up within the coming week, which means the strip of cloth is next. This I am, of course, weaving by hand on a table loom. I purchased the loom from my old high school, as the school mainly uses floor looms now. For the warp, I'm using the thickest polyester sewing thread I could find, as it will provide an incredible amount of tensile strength. I'm not sure what kind of pattern I'm going to do, or what the weft's colors should be, but those considerations are on my to-do list.