I am a product designer, and now I am venturing into making my own furniture. Although I had some woodworking classes, I am still unexperienced with bending wood. So I designed a dining chair for my table. The problem is to bend the seat and back. It was easy to create a mould for the table legs, but the seat is way wider. Should I use the chair as the mould or is there a better solution?
Well, I think the usual approach is to build up a form for bending the wood out of plywood. Then you can steam the wood and clamp it to the form. Depending on the wood, you might have to make the form slightly more curved than your intended shape in case it springs back a bit.
But it’s a complicated process and takes some experimentation. There’s a fair amount of how-to’s if you google “bending wood” or go to You Tube.