SLIS table

2022
Wood naturally holds tension. When growing, trees seek balance to remain stable on the ground. Whereas woodworking usually suppresses tension, this design uses it. The wood joinery technique, based on the elasticity and tension of the material, results in a sturdy, but lightweight furniture design.

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The method of this design is based on using the tension of wood, that is released when cut, in order to create a new kind of wood joinery. Due to a sawing mistake, I noticed the large amount of tension that wood holds. A piece of timber that I accidentally only partially cut along its length showed the elasticity and tension that is released in the wood. This tension has a direct relation to the length of the cut and bending it creates a natural looking curve. The design principle that the length of the cut determines how far a piece of wood could bend formed the starting point for further experiments.

A wood joint is a technique to join multiple parts of timber to form a construction. Some parts of the timber are cut and removed to create space, another piece of timber can then fit in this space to join them. This design uses a variation of the slisverbinding (NL), or bridle joint (EN). However, instead of removing material is it bent away to create space for the other part to fit in. The wood is bent using steam, as to prevent the material from splitting further. The design of the table comes forth from a consistent execution of this SLIS joinery method that I developed.

SLIS table
Custom steam bended wood joinery made entirely out of solid ash wood treated with furniture oil. The table top is made out of a two centimeters thick solid ash panel.

SLIS 220 table
length x with x hight
220 x 100 x 76

SLIS 250 table
length x with x hight
250 x 100 x 76

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