Slim Chair

Carbon Fibre is a material that is becoming more widely used in the everyday and most people have seen it either in a car or on the bicycle they ride. It serves two purposes mainly. Firstly as a material used to provide extreme strength and stiffness for a given weight, and secondly as a visual aesthetic finish. Carbon fibre on its own starts life as a fabric that needs to be impregnated with an epoxy resin. There are several ways of doing this but the end result is the same. Without the resin, the carbon fibre does not work. To create the shape someone needs as the end product, a mould has to be made first. The carbon and epoxy resin is then placed in the mould to the correct quantities and then placed under a vacuum and heat until the epoxy is cured and the product can be taken from the mould. For production pieces a small quantity of trimming and finishing is required and the product is complete, however with one off pieces the finishing process of trimming, sanding, varnishing and painting can take far longer than the initial time taken to make the physical piece. Using carbon fibre in furniture allows the maker to create shapes and amazing visuals that is virtually impossible to achieve with any other material. Because of its strength, pieces can be made that look unable to work without breaking, or give something the required strength without the bulk of a conventional material and remain visually hidden to achieve an otherwise impossible aesthetic. Using these materials which can be combined with others like wood and metals, thanks to the abilities of epoxy, the only real limitation is what can be imagined.