Custom Furniture & Woodworking Studio

Whip-it Bench

Building this free form piece was pure joy. The lines on the bench are meant to captivate and pull the eye. The design was led by what curves and undulations looked right, not by technical drawings. The bench’s ribbon is formed from sixteen 15' long ash plies which were laminated together while bent around a framework. The seat is made of thermal ash, which is a process where the wood is heated in an oxygen free vacuum. This causes the sugars in the wood to caramelize, giving it the rich brown tone.

Materials: ash, thermal ash

Both the ribbon and seat are made of ash. The ribbon is natural ash, and the seat is thermal ash. Thermal ash is created by heating the wood to approximately 400 degrees  in an oxygen free vacuum. Because there is no oxygen, instead of burning the heat causes the sugars in the wood to caramelize, giving it the rich brown tone

This page gives a quick explanation of how the bench was made