How To: Make a Bent Wood Bowl

I’m an enormous fan of bent plywood furniture. The subtle curving shapes of the precedent-setting Eames chairs are amazing:

And while it’s not impossible to do at home, it would take a lot of gear, time, and money. Individual layers are steamed and then laminated (glued on top of each other) over two-sided forms, forming curved plywood.

And while this hand shaped bent wood bowl is no Eames lounge, it’s still pretty cool, and demonstrates how the steam bending of plywood works. Layers of 1/8″ plywood from the craft store are steamed on the cooktop in an Asian-style food steamer, then shaped with a bowl and glued together.

With some better woodworking, like stacking all the layers together and cutting them at the same time on a bandsaw (or for the lucky of you, a laser cutter), this would actually be a pretty sweet project.

Make a Bent Wood Hand-Shaped Bowl [Dollar Store Crafts]