Project: Lounge Table Made from 3D Printed Titanium
Design: Y.S. Collective – James McNab, Sam Griffin and Daniel Kamp
Materials:
New Zealand Tawa – Hand worked by traditional wood worker Nigel Cotterill
Selective Laser Sintered Titanium
Contributing parties:
Rapid Advance Manufacturing and TiDa – titanium manufacturing
Nigel Cotterill of NDC – wood craft
The Titanium-Tawa Table is a multi-leveled lounge table made from hand crafted New Zealand Tawa wood and 3D printed titanium. The piece consists of three separate smaller tables, each with just one leg, supported by a titanium frame which connects the tables at necessary points to make it structurally sound.
Each smaller table would not stand without the titanium frame that supports them – a nod toward a future in which craft industries and additive manufacturing may support each other, rather than compete.
For the table to be constructed, the wooden components are crafted by traditional wood worker Nigel Cotterill, then 3D scanned and converted into digital files. Those files are used to design a digital 3D model of the titanium frame and connectors. Those models are then 3D printed and fixed to the wooden components to complete the piece.
The Titanium-Tawa Table is a part of the Unknown series; a project exploring potential relationships between hand craft and additive manufacturing. The Titanium-Tawa Table is a challenge to the process by which furniture is crafted today. In the very near future, computers will be much better at engineering than we are, but they still won’t be able to impart that ‘human touch’; that touch which allows us to truly fall in love with an object.
