Revenge Of The Glueless Stool And A New Folding Chair

glueless stool

[Vincent] is at it again, with the final iteration of his glueless stool and a new project.

As many of you commented on the original post, three legs might not be enough. He might have taken note, as the final design contains not 3, not 4, but five legs. After the break we have a clip of it being used, and it looks quite sturdy!

But is that it? Is [Vincent] done with innovative wood furniture? Nope. Not since his wife came up with a challenge to create a practical, foldable, and especially, not ugly — chair. He began by researching the dry subject of chairs and determined the approximate popliteal height that his chair should provide. Keeping with the theme, he wanted this chair to be cut from a single piece of wood, just like the stool. A few sketches later and he had a basic design ready, still glueless, but unfortunately this time requiring hinges. After a few hiccups in his CNC program, he had a working foldable chair, but our guess is it’s not quite the final design.

Just like last time, all the files are freely available from his Github, so if you happen to have a CNC router, or maybe a laser cutter, you can make your own!

[Thanks Vincent!]

17 thoughts on “Revenge Of The Glueless Stool And A New Folding Chair

  1. Glueless plywood, but serisouly the hardest part about plywood is getting good plywood. The price is not so bad at £22 (35 USD) per chair, I guess I’m going to hog up quite some time on the Makerspace CNC if I need these in any larger quantity .

    1. Yeah I know plywood has lots of glue ;-) but this design is realisable from virtually any sheet material (as long as it is strong enough under tension) not just plywood.

      I would like to try and cut an improved version from solid softwood or possibly even bamboo but those materials are very expensive compared to plywood.

      I guess MDF would work but it is even less pretty than plywood, I do not know teh relative strength of MDF under tension either.

    2. Not really, go to any marine supply store and buy marine grade plywood. If you think you can get ever good plywood at home improvement stores….

      That is the sad part, places like Lowes and Home depot only sell the lowest quality products, they are the “walmart” of the construction world and nobody in their right mind would ever go to one of them.

    1. I do mention that in the posting, it needs another iteration to move the backrest further back but I have been banned from making more prototypes for the moment.

      with version 3 I estimate it is about 30mm too far forward which is easily fixable by extending the apex to backrest distance by 30mm and decreasing the apex height by about the same.

      I might be naughty and just produce another one and leave it at the workshop ;-)

  2. Good job. It takes some innovative engineering and precise craftsmanship to work without common fasteners, especially with a medium such as wood. Reminds me of the woodwork done back in the day with many barns and structures such as the Capitol Dome in Annapolis, MD. All interlocking wooden beams without fastening devices or substances. It’s an art, really.

    1. I probably did see this during my research and it probably has influenced the design but I certainly did not directly reference it. The design I remember seeing was from Christian Desile which is somewhat different.

      You mention Bamboo, while it may be an eco friendly material it is most certainly not cheap here in the UK. I have had quotations from several supplies for bamboo plywood to fabricate the stool design from and a 1220x2400x20mm sheet is in excess of £300

      1. Hey,
        I didn’t want to imply a copy, i just wanted to point that they have a nice solution for hinges and connections.

        Strange, bamboo, in my knowledge was readly availble, but i guess yo uwould need a direct supplier and significant quantities to get good deals… After all it’s a trendy wood so demand will get prices up for small quantities, joyfull capitalism ;)
        Good luck with the design!

  3. What is the motivation to not use glue? A personal challenge or some practical consideration.

    For your folding chair it is possible to create all wooden hinges built into the structure itself. I am not sure how sturdy those would be in plywood, but the concept does work.

    1. On the stool design it was simply a design choice and as has been repeatedly mentioned the plywood is full of glue anyway.

      The folding chair design does not use glue simply because it is not required, not a concious choice at all. By using a single sheet there are only three parts and joining with hinges screwed into the timber was the obvious solution.

      I have experimented with trying to create hardwood dowel hinges routed directly into the plywood but they are difficult to make and bind excessively so inexpensive reliable hinges won on practicality.

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