Guerilla Furniture Design: How to Build Lean, Modern Furniture with Salvaged Materials
192
Guerilla Furniture Design: How to Build Lean, Modern Furniture with Salvaged Materials
192eBook
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Overview
Build stylish and functional furniture from salvaged materials. This innovative guide presents dozens of strategies for upcycling scrap cardboard, metal, plastic, or wood into dependable shelving units, sturdy tables, and fun lamps. With directions for 35 easy and inexpensive projects that include a Cardboard Cantilever Chair, a License Plate Bowl, a Conduit Coatrack, and much more, you’ll be inspired to start filling your home with unique high-style furniture that makes sense for both your wallet and the environment.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781612123042 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Storey Publishing, LLC |
| Publication date: | 03/31/2015 |
| Sold by: | Hachette Digital, Inc. |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 192 |
| File size: | 23 MB |
| Note: | This product may take a few minutes to download. |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
Paper
CHAPTER CONTENTS
Hex Stool Cube Lamp Book Table Cardboard Tube Screens Cardboard Cantilever Chair Cardboard Shell Chair
PAPER IS THE IDEAL MATERIAL FOR THE GUERILLA DESIGNER.
It's light, plentiful, and recyclable. It passes through our daily lives in many forms, from paper bags to the rapidly disappearing newspaper. The average American flushes about 26 rolls of toilet paper every year.
For thousands of years, people wrote on clay tablets, reed mats, and animal skins. Pulp-based paper was first developed in the second century by court scholars of the Han dynasty in China, spreading from there through Islamic kingdoms of the Middle East and on to the West. Until the nineteenth century, paper remained an expensive commodity because it was made by hand out of scarce cloth rags. In 1844, Charles Fenerty, of Canada, and F. G. Keller, a German, both invented processes for pulping wood fiber for paper manufacture. Over time, water-powered pulping mills, supplied by America's vast forests, dropped the price of paper to a point where it became a disposable commodity.
Paper production begins with pulping wood, either chemically or mechanically, rendering solid wood chips into long, stringy bundles of cellulose fiber. Chemical pulping removes the lignin, a compound found in the cell walls of plants that weakens paper and causes it to yellow over time. The kraft process uses a mixture of water, sodium sulfide, and sodium hydroxide to remove the lignin, rendering a pure mash of cellulose fibers. Chemical pulping, while less efficient, produces a better-quality fiber used in printing, archival, and book papers. Mechanical pulping just grinds up the wood and washes it with water. It is a cheaper, higher-yield process but produces a brittle product suitable for boxes and newsprint.
Paper can be used by the guerilla in a variety of ways. Saturated with paste, paper becomes papier-mâché, allowing the construction of hard, durable shells in fluid shapes. Corrugated cardboard can be laminated and then worked like wood, creating a sturdy lumber substitute. Alternatively, intersecting grids of corrugated cardboard are strong enough to support substantial amounts of weight. The heavy cardboard tubes at the center of rolls of plotter paper, newsprint, or fabric are incredibly strong, can hold bolts and screws, and finish well with wax or polyurethane. Bigger cardboard tubes, like the ones used for concrete formwork (Sonotube is one common product), can be made into seating and storage with little modification.
Paper is also the perfect introductory material for the beginner craftsman. It is cheap (often free), easy to work, requires limited tools, and provides the aspiring designer with the means to rapidly prototype ideas. We will examine many permanent furniture projects made of paper here, but cardboard also makes a great material for models, patterns, and templates.
MATERIALS
Newsprint
Newsprint is a low-quality, low-strength gray paper made by mechanically pulping wood. A low sulfur content makes it susceptible to yellowing, and it will become brittle and flaky over time, especially when exposed to sunlight. As the name would suggest, it is most widely used for printing newspapers and other disposable paper products. It can also be bought, unprinted, on rolls. Artists use it for sketching, and designers use it to template for dresses and other fabric goods. Its cheapness, absorbency, and wide availability (often for free) make it a great material for papier-mâché, though it takes many layers to build up strength. It readily absorbs paint and other finishes.
Kraft Paper
Kraft paper is a dense, coarse brown paper used in envelopes, grocery bags, corrugated cardboard, shotgun cartridges, and as backing for sandpaper. It has a high tensile (tearing) strength, which makes it good for bags, boxes, and other packaging. A high sulfur content makes it resistant to yellowing. It can be bought on 24" or 36" rolls at hardware stores, office-supply stores, and shipping companies. The most widely available free source is grocery bags; cut along the seams and unfolded, bags provide 2 to 3 square feet of material. Kraft paper works well for high-strength papier-mâché, though its slightly hydrophilic nature makes it harder to saturate with glue. Once dried hard, it can be sanded and shaped like softwood.
Rosin Paper
Rosin paper is a heavyweight kraft paper impregnated with rosin, the resin of softwood trees. This imbues it with a reddish tint and a degree of water resistance. Builders use it as underlayment for wooden floors or a temporary protective surface over floors and windows during construction. It is very strong and resistant to tearing but doesn't glue well due to its water resistance.
Paperboard
Paperboard encompasses a dozen or so subcategories, though it generally refers to thin, kraft-based cardboard in common items like cereal boxes. Chipboard specifically refers to recycled paperboard. It comes in different thicknesses made of laminated layers known as plies. A single ply is about 1/16" thick, and may be laminated up to eight times to create pieces as thick as ¼".Chipboard can be found at craft and art supply stores, commonly sold in 30" × 40" sheets. It is used in architectural model making, packaging, and fine-art poster printing.
Corrugated Cardboard
Corrugated cardboard was first mass-manufactured in the 1870s, initially as single-face sheets used to protect delicate objects during shipping. About 20 years later, the first double-faced sheets were used to make pre-creased foldable boxes, still in wide use today. The fluted middle layer of double-faced cardboard provides much of the material's strength. When force is applied in line with the "grain," parallel to the flutes, corrugated cardboard can bear considerable weight.
Single-wall cardboard has two face sheets and one layer of corrugation. Double-wall cardboard has two face sheets and two layers or corrugation, with a third flat sheet in between, creating a stronger, more rigid material than single-wall cardboard. In recent years, packaging companies have designed advanced corrugation patterns, such as honeycomb boards, for specialty applications.
Corrugated can be bought in flat sheets from craft stores and shipping companies, but the best source of corrugated is flattened boxes, abundant in alleys and behind big-box stores.
Hardboard
Hardboard (often referred to by the brand name Masonite) is not technically a paper product, but it is made with a similar process and works well in concert with cardboard. Invented in 1924 by William Mason, it is made by pressure-cooking wood fibers with steam and then bonding them under pressure, resulting in a thin uniform sheet. The lignin in the fiber serves as an adhesive, eliminating glue from the lamination process. It is used for crating artwork, as a painting surface, skins for skateboard ramps, mold-making, and other applications where a flexible, smooth surface is desired. Hardboard comes in 1/8" and ¼" thicknesses, with one smooth side and one rough side. Thin, inexpensive, nontoxic, and uniform, it glues well and makes an excellent diaphragm back for shelves or cabinets. The lack of glue means it is generally safe to use with laser cutters, though it smells awful when burned.
Homasote
Homasote is a brand name for compressed cellulose board. Generally ½" thick, it consists of shredded recycled paper fiber compressed with heat and adhesive to form flat sheets. The result is a strong, porous board that is essentially a giant sheet of papier-mâché. It has excellent sound-deadening and thermal insulation qualities and is often used as a pin board. It is soft and easy to work but produces a fine, clingy dust when cut. Use a regular circular saw with a finishing blade for cuts, and fasten with slip-fit drywall screws and wood glue.
Paper Tubes
Paper tubes are found at the center of rolls of material, from toilet paper to newsprint. Thicker-walled cardboard tubes found at the center of big rolls of paper are an ideal structural material — extremely strong, light, and already formed into a linear structural unit. Cardboard tubes are much like lumber in that they can hold mechanical fasteners like screws and react well to wood finishes like polyurethane. Look for tubes at print shops, shipping companies, or architecture firms that print large-format drawings. Long fluorescent lights come packaged in thick-walled paper tubes; look for tubes in dumpsters around office complexes and construction sites. Mailing tubes typically are too lightweight for structural uses but, like corrugated cardboard, may be strong enough to bear weight when massed.
Wheat Paste
Wheat paste is a glue that takes advantage of the adhesive properties of gluten, a protein found in wheat and other grains. It can be made for cents on the gallon and kept in the refrigerator until needed. Historically, it has been used as wallpaper paste and poster adhesive. It can be used to both stick material together and saturate it to provide a degree of water-resistance and durability. Diluted wheat paste is used to create papier-mâché.
Making Your Own Wheat Paste
Add five parts water to a saucepan and set it on high to boil. While the water is heating, dissolve one part flour into one part cold water by gradually adding the flour and whisking constantly.
When the water boils, add the flour-water mixture to the pan, again whisking constantly. Return to a boil for 30 to 60 seconds. It should thicken somewhat, but don't be alarmed if it appears thin; it will thicken further as it cools. Remove the pan from the heat and let the paste cool to room temperature before use.
Adding a few tablespoons of sugar at the end of the boiling (so the sugar doesn't burn) increases stickiness, which is helpful because plain wheat paste doesn't have much "grab" when wet. The same amount of salt or vinegar acts as a preservative to increase shelf life. For a stronger, thicker paste, increase the proportion of flour or use whole-wheat flour, which contains more gluten than white flour. If you can't use all of the paste immediately, you can refrigerate it for up to a week; let it come up to room temperature and whisk out any chunks or coagulated "skin" before using.
TOOLS
Paintbrush
A paintbrush is the go-to tool for spreading wheat paste. Buy a decent-quality synthetic-bristle brush, and wash it out thoroughly with hot water between uses. Foam brushes are a little too flimsy to stand up to the thick glue.
Straightedge
Cutting straight lines in cardboard freehand is nearly impossible. Invest in a metal yardstick or drywall T-square, or use a metal spirit level as a straightedge to make clean cuts.
Box Cutter
The most indispensable tool for working with cardboard is a good box cutter. Available at any hardware store, the best box cutters have a metal body and use breakaway blades, allowing you to snap off segments as they become dull. You can also extend the blade to cut through multiple layers of material. Use a cutter in tandem with a good-quality straightedge for true cuts. Take it with you when stalking alleys for material so you can break down boxes in the field.
Clamps
Laminating cardboard can be challenging, as the material is not rigid enough to distribute clamping pressure, leaving air pockets and weak spots. When gluing strips together, sandwich them between 2×4s or other scrap lumber to compress the cardboard evenly. Clamps are not cheap, but it is worth investing in four or five 24" bar clamps that can be used for multiple projects.
Saws
When laminated, corrugated cardboard acts much like lumber — it can be cut, drilled, and sanded. A circular saw, table saw, or jigsaw allows for straight, precise cuts through many layers of glue-saturated (thoroughly dried) material with a lot less labor than a box cutter. Some sort of power saw is also essential for cutting harder paper products, such as hardboard or Homasote. Use a fine-toothed finishing blade for smooth cuts and minimal tear-out. See Wood (chapter) for more information on using power saws with wood.
METHODS
Lamination
Lamination refers to the gluing of many layers of material together to make a thicker sheet. Cardboard and paper are particularly well suited to lamination, which helps to capitalize on their strengths and minimize their weaknesses. Large sheets of cardboard "plywood" can be manufactured by gluing corrugated cardboard together with wheat paste, alternating the direction of the corrugations with each layer. Spread the glue with a brush or roller on both faces (except the top- and bottom-most layers) of each cardboard sheet and press the pieces together on a flat surface. Stack a piece of plywood on top and weight evenly with bricks, cinderblocks, sandbags, etc. Let it dry for 24 hours, preferably with a fan circulating air. Wheat paste (see recipe) is made of organic ingredients and can take a long time to dry, which may lead to moldy cardboard if left damp for too long. Once the glue has dried hard, the resultant material can be worked like wood.
Protect your working surface with scrap cardboard or a drop cloth, as wheat paste tends to get everywhere. Work as quickly as possible to ensure the pile is under clamping pressure before the glue on the first layer begins to dry, which can result in delamination. If a very thick sheet is desired, make a series of smaller laminations (say, five sheets each), let dry, then glue up a stack of five-ply pieces.
Stack lamination refers to the practice of precutting layers of material to size and shape before gluing them together. This process can save time and minimize waste when gluing up curved or unusual shapes. The trick is getting everything aligned as the glue dries. Use a template to cut all your pieces, including a pattern of registration holes — holes that are in the same location in every layer — and slide the pieces onto dowels. Once all the pieces are in place, withdraw the dowels and weight the stack. Alternately, build a plywood formwork that holds the edges of all the pieces in alignment as the pile progresses.
Dry lamination is glueless laminating, using mechanical fasteners, ratchet straps, twine, or tape to bind together disparate layers of cardboard into a structurally cohesive unit. A simple example is the bales of waste cardboard behind every supermarket; boxes are flattened, compressed, and bundled with nylon or metal strips. Homemade bales, bound with twisted twine, can be made into seed-starter bricks or basic benches. Flat sheets can be rolled up into coils and taped (neatly) into very strong structural columns.
Curved stack lamination for design objects was pioneered in the 1940s by Charles and Ray Eames. Thin veneers of wood were pressed into curved forms with adhesive, and then cured under heat and pressure, resulting in organic shapes. The same process can be employed on a guerilla scale by clamping cardboard into shaped formwork with copious amounts of wheat paste. Curved lamination is a form of pre-stressing, which has ergonomic and structural advantages. Arching the material makes it more resistant to compression without increasing mass.
Folded Structures
Origami is an ancient Japanese art in which thin sheets of paper are folded into animals, flowers, and complex geometric abstractions. Cardboard, with the help of slits and creases, can be made into structural, load-bearing shapes without the use of tape or glue. Score corrugated cardboard lightly, along the grain, to facilitate folding. Secure the folds with a system of tabs and slots, pin in place with coarse-thread drywall screws, or "sew" together with zip ties. Orient the flutes in line with the application of force for maximum load-bearing capacity. For instance, in a stool or chair, the flutes should run vertically to resist the weight of the sitter.
Papier-mâché
Papier-mâché has a long history — linen dipped in plaster was used to make death masks of the pharaohs in ancient Egypt. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, papier-mâché panels treated with lacquer or linseed oil were used to make lightweight body panels for carriages. Modern papier-mâché typically is made with strips of newsprint saturated with wheat paste and laid over a form, where it dries into a hard, durable shell. Strengthen the basic wheat paste mix by adding small amounts of plaster or PVA (white) glue. Shape the finished pieces with sandpaper and finish with rubbed oil, polyurethane, or paint.
Paper Tube Joinery
Paper tubes have a high strength-to-weight ratio, but their round cross-section makes them difficult to join together. They can be saddled together with notches, similar to log cabin construction, and secured with a machine bolt pin. Spline joinery involves cutting slits in the ends of the tubes and inserting wood or metal plates, then through-bolting to complete the joint. Another method is to cut U-shaped scallops in the ends of the tubes, allowing them to fit over the round cross-section of adjoining tubes. Paper tubes readily accept mechanical fasteners, like screws and bolts, which makes them easier to work with than some other, more fragile, forms of paper.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Guerilla Furniture Design"
by .
Copyright © 2015 William C. Holman.
Excerpted by permission of Storey Publishing.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
AcknowledgementsPreface
Introduction
- Guerilla History
- Guerilla Sustainability
- Geurilla Philosophy
- the Guerilla Workshop
- Design Fundamentals
- Hex Stool
- Cube Lamp
- Book Table
- Cardboard Tube Screens
- Cardboard Cantilever Chair
- Cardboard Shell Chair
- Un-TrashCan
- Geurilla Roof Rack
- Flat-Pack Sawhorses
- Door Desk
- Break-Down Table
- Flat-Pack Shelves
- Bedside Table
- Scrap Lamp
- Two-Tone Table
- Scrap Table
- Bracket Chair
- Campaign Lamp
- Traffice Cone Lamp
- Milk Crate Credenza
- 5-Gallon Stool
- Inner Tube Stool
- Pill Bottle Pendant Lamp
- Milk Crate Wall Storage
- Yogurt Lamp
- Conduit Coatrack
- License Plate Bowl
- Clamp Table
- Conduit Lamp
- Wheelbarrow Chair
- Road Sign Chair
Recommended Reading
Standard/Metric Conversion Formulas
Projects by Use
Index
What People are Saying About This
"I have a license plate bowl, made by Will Holman, sitting on a common table. While the aesthetic appeals, it's really there because it tells a story about where the materials were found and who made it. Learn from one of the best how to make your furniture tell a story you're proud of."
"Will Holman put together a book full of great projects that will jump-start your creativity. It's a fantastic resource for the beginner and experienced maker alike!"
"Will Holman put together a book full of great projects that will jump-start your creativity. It's a fantastic resource for the beginner and experienced maker alike!"