It has been a little over 2 years and the chair design I was close to printing has not been printed. I was having difficulty trying to figure out how to prevent the chair from collapsing in the middle. My goal was to have an entirely 3d printed chair that could be printed on a desktop 3d printer. Some details remain; however, I believe printing can begin this Summer.

I have not been idle with this project and have tested two elements successfully; the cushion and connector chain. As I stated in part 3, the connector chain is a bit odd, but it appears to be strong. Link to Tinkercad file.

Precursor

Desirous of a simpler chair, I put a plywood board together with a stool/chair back I designed last year. My goal was to imitate the very comfortable stools at Starbucks’ Reserve Roastery on Michigan Avenue in Chicago. While writing this post, I learned that the stools are called Pebble Stools and were designed by Architect firm, BassamFellows. Architect Craig Bassam used a pebble he found on a Cape Cod beach as inspiration for the stool. “Numerous prototypes were worked on, with incremental changes to the sculptural shape – the finished Pebble Stool was the result of a final tweak of 10mm in the tilt to create optimum comfort, …”

After putting all pieces of my simple chair together, I sat in the chair for a few seconds before I was propelled to the floor. Looking at the broken pieces, I was able to determine what caused the failure; chair legs and flanges. I know now that any 3d printed flanges that are meant to hold heavy weight should be designed differently. Despite my crash, I was very pleased with the chair back and I have designed legs that should work. The legs will be used on the fully 3d printed chair as well, therefore the simple chair project is a test for the full 3d print chair design project.

If you are interested in experimenting with the chair back, you can find it on Cults3d.