Retro Style
April 21, 2008 at 8:24 pm | Posted in concepts, Furniture, Laneventure | Leave a comment
Circa 2006: This still-born project for Laneventure was an exploration in “retro” styling for the “extruded aluminum” outdoor furniture category. The inspiration comes from many time periods – Bauhaus modern, to ubiquitous and low-priced patio furniture of the middle 20th century, to mid-century modern classics – but adapted to “standard” dimensions and cushion specs used in Laneventure’s other outdoor products. The lounge chair was prototyped and shown to a select few, but it was deamed to be less important to develop than other projects that were in competition if I recall the story correctly. Weather or not it would have succeeded in the marketplace is anyone’s guess; retro seems to work well for automobiles, but its been pretty limited in furniture. None the less, I find the frame to be visually interesting…
The next kayak…
April 21, 2008 at 7:44 pm | Posted in Kayaks | 1 Comment
Circa 2008: Since July 2007 I’ve been hard at work trying to flesh out the next skin on frame kayak to build. I took it upon myself to read up a bit on kayak design and naval architecture in general so that I would have a better understanding of what I’m doing. The design brief has changed a bit as I have learned more about kayak design, but the constant themes have been that the kayak had to be capable of more speed (i.e. longer) and a bit more challenging (i.e. less stable, i.e. narrower) than the retrieval. I also wanted the kayak to be easy to build, with as few aesthetic features as possible (i.e. “modern”). I played around with many different designs, from 11′ to 16′ in length, and 18″ to 23″ in width, and took some long and ultimately dead-end tangents in form and shape.
I finally settled on 15’7″ x 21″ as a compromise between speed potential, wetted surface area, and stability. On paper, its speed potential (measured as resistance) is average for a kayak its size. While longer kayaks do have more speed potential if you have the power and fitness to make use of it, that potential comes at the price of greater surface area (more resistance at lower speeds) and increasing difficulty with transportation and storage. The width is not particularly narrow for an historical skin kayak, but its moderately narrow for a modern, commercial sea kayak, while being on the short end of the length spectrum for both. If calculations are correct, it will have a suprising high amount of stability because of the boxy hull cross section. While I initially thought that going for very low “skill building” stability would be a good thing, designing for higher stability came with only a small handicap in speed while (hopefully) giving a kayak that inspires more confidence and allows one to relax without constant attention to prevent capsize (i.e. more fun, less work, since that’s what a hobby is all about!)
The final thing worth mentioning is that I intend to build this kayak from as many found/scrounged/salvaged materials as possible. Wood, fabric, and lashing material is pretty easily found, but skin coating and glue is probably best bought “fresh” so that there is less likelyhood of failure.
Below: A few of the various design dead-ends.
Illustration: Rattan Chair Concepts
April 21, 2008 at 7:02 pm | Posted in concepts, Furniture | Leave a comment
Circa 2006: A few rattan chair concepts that never made it off the drawing board…
“If Dali Painted Cigars”
April 21, 2008 at 6:58 pm | Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment
Circa 2004: some of my old illustration artwork, a humorous twist on Dali-esque surrealism.
Publicity!
April 21, 2008 at 5:22 pm | Posted in Furniture, Laneventure | Leave a comment
Various bits of publicity for things I’ve worked on at Laneventure since 2004. In no specific order:
- Huntington Bay teak, ca. 2005 (designed with Jonathan Dearman)
- Spinnaker synthetic wicker, ca. 2007
- Celerie mixed media, ca. 2004
- Mondrian natural wicker, ca. 2007
- Platinum synthetic wicker, ca. 2006
- At Home In Tuscany wrought aluminum, ca. 2005-2006
- Kingston synthetic wicker, ca. 2006
The ‘retrieval’ kayak
April 21, 2008 at 4:40 pm | Posted in Kayaks | 6 Comments
Circa 2006-2007: I had always wanted to build some kind of small boat, and in doing research on boats, plans, etc. I came across a wonderful resource for skin on frame kayaks that directed me towards some of the smaller documented kayaks of the arctic. To put it lightly, I ‘fell in love’ with the ‘skin boat’ technology and abandoned all other construction methods to help get myself out on the water as quickly, and for as little cash, as possible. After seeing the construction techniques advocated by the most prolific designer of home built kayaks, I took off adapting the lines of an early 20th century North Alaska “retrieval” kayak design to more modern construction methods. Using Rhinoceros 3D, I built the frame digitally, making some modifications for ease of construction along the way, until I felt I had exactly what I was after. I had intended to built it from one sheet of 7/8″ plywood, with all parts CNC-cut, but the longitudinal components weren’t up to the task and were later replaced with solid wood during construction. The CNC-cut cross sections, bow, and setern assemblies were used.
The frame construction took about a solid month of evenings and weekends to complete. There is minimal glue used, with most parts being doweled and/or lashed with artificial sinew (waxed nylon fiber). I assembled the frame outside during the winter, and needing to use very little glue allowed me to make progress dispite temperatures being much too low for glue cure on most occasions. The plywood is yellow pine, 7/8″ thick, and the solid wood is mostly pine, but western red cedar and spruce were also used in a few places. The frame weighs in at 29 lbs, which is a little heavy for a skin boat its size, but this is due to the heavy plywood and pine used.
Adding the skin took another month of long nights. The skin is stretched over the frame and sewed together along the deck, which is both easier than one might imagine but also quite time consuming. The actual fabric is a light weight polyester – much lighter than most skin boats use – but for protected inland lakes, and my low budget, it seemed adequate. The skin was sewn on with dental floss. The coaming is attached by sewing as well, but it is held in place with heavier nylon cord and artificial sinew. Once the skin is sewn on, it must be coated to make it waterproof. I chose to use Rustoleum enamel, since it is both cheap and available in many colors (I still chose black, however!). I painted on coats of enamel until I had used almost 2 quarts and was satisfied with the smoothness of the hull. The skin and paint added 10 lbs to the total weight, bringing the total weight to 39 lbs. Again, a bit on the heavy side for a skin boat its size, although its lighter than commercially-produced plastic kayaks of a similar size.
So was it successful? Yes! It floats, and paddles nicely. Its not particularly fast, but no 10′ kayak is fast compared to the more typical sea kayaks that range from 16′ to well over 19′. I made enough changes to make it my own design really, its longer than the documented original by 10″, and the gunwales are oriented at a different angle, not to mention the construction methods. The deck is lower, and the cockpit is larger/longer and of a modern shape. I made many changes and design decisions for the wrong reasons, even though it turned out well overall. Dispite the short comings, I paddled it often during 2007, even on Lake Norman in 2′ chop. This little black duckling has changed my life, however; it was the most enjopyable and rewarding of the many projects I’ve undertaken, and I cannot wait to build another.
Vera chair
April 10, 2008 at 4:06 pm | Posted in Furniture, Laneventure | Leave a comment
Circa 2006: Another item for Laneventure (single item, not a collection). Sort of builds on the ‘Spinnaker’ aestethic, but its heavily inspired by a real mid-century modern chair. We had to work at the frame for this chair to make it both durable and not particularly expensive. Bent ply would have been perfect for the back, but it proved to be cost-prohibitive for a single frame component. The production part is a paper composite; its much more dense (and stronger) than MDF, made from laminations of heavy paper much like bent ply. Not as strong as real plywood, but more than adequate and much less expensive. The complete chair is nicely scaled, and very comfortable. Its garnered quite a lot of shelter magazine and trade publication attention for Laneventure.
Spinnaker collection
April 10, 2008 at 3:53 pm | Posted in Furniture, Laneventure | Leave a comment
Circa 2005-2006: The Spinnaker collection for Laneventure is the first successful work at my employer that I feel is worth sharing with my name attached to it. It was originally meant to be a laminated teak affair, but after production issues and projected costs came in, we put it on the back burner only to revive it a year later in synthetic wicker. For my employer, it challenged commonly-held views on what makes a proper chair (note it doesn’t use a typical back cushion, only pillows) as well as presented some technical challenges in cushion construction that allowed water to pass through easily yet hold its shape with extended use. The lounge chair is the only item shown at this point, but there are other great pieces in the collection (you can check them out at the Laneventure website in the meantime). A design patent was awarded for the collection in 2007.
CNC experiment #2 (chairs)
April 10, 2008 at 3:33 pm | Posted in Furniture | Leave a comment
Circa 2006-2007: I needed “better” desk seating at work (and a good excuse to play with the CNC router) so I embarked on a mission to create some interesting and comfortable plywood chairs. Ultimately, I ended up with two relatively simple chair designs, since I didn’t need casters, swivel, tilt, arms, cupholders, power windows, etc. One is sort of a play on the Shaker post-and-rung aesthetic, with a healthy dose of mid-century modern mixed in; the other is more post-modern to contemporary in style, and uses dowel rods for a slightly flexible seat and back. Not original ideas, really (there are similar chairs by several different designers). My goal was to scale them to fit my body perfectly, since these were not intended to be production items or used by others, and it provided an interesting study in ergonimics. Yes, that’s been studied at length for decades, but I had to go an re-invent the wheel. I also tried some interesting jointery techniques on the CNC router to take advantage of some features we weren’t using at the time. The neo-Shaker chair ended up being a bit off in terms of scale, so the legs were modified to make it a low-slung lounge chair so as not to loose all usefulness. The dowel chair worked out much better since I took a different approach to the dimensioning (its also possible I just got lucky – did all the right things for the wrong reasons!) and it is what I use to this day as a desk chair. The neo-Shaker chair is my “guest” chair, for those who like to sit low to the ground…
CNC experiment #1 (console table)
April 10, 2008 at 3:18 pm | Posted in concepts, Furniture | Leave a comment
Circa 2005: Not too long after I had taken my first job out of school, I had two problems that needed to be solved – find/make/aquire additional furnishings and storage for my apartment, and learn more about the CNC router at work. I played around with many different designs, but ultimately decided to make a curvy, sculptural, CNC-cut console table to use as book storage and a place to keep the stereo system. This allowed a crash course in taking a design from sketch to parts cut by CNC router. It was suprisingly easy to get into a format that the CNC nesting software would actually use, despite the fact that my Rhino exports didn’t seem to work with the particular nesting software being used. I decided that it was best to prototype it in a cheap material first, so it was run in MDF. The MDF turned out to be barely strong enough to hold the glass up, much less hold anything on top of the glass. In hindsight, I should have stuck to my guns and made the prototype from decent plywood, since I moved on to the Next Big Thing before making a usable version. The technical success of the initial prototype spurred on many more experiments with the CNC router, which is the real value that was to be found in this project.
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