Crafting a 'SuperFoam' Chair

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By Matt Mets
Posted 2009/10/26 @ 2:26 pm
Category Furniture

I’m digging Rich Gilbert’s SuperFoam chair, especially the construction video. I’ve always wondered how you could form bubbles in silicone, and now I know: balloons! Any other ideas about what you could make using this construction method? What if you wanted the bubbles to be some other shape instead of spheres? [via core77]

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10 Responses to Crafting a 'SuperFoam' Chair

Morder on October 26th, 2009 at 6:45 pm said:

First thing that comes to mind is a loss wax type method.

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- Matt Mets on October 27th, 2009 at 12:04 pm said:
  
  Yeah, I suppose that makes sense, one will just have to be very careful when extracting the wax!
  
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barry on October 26th, 2009 at 8:30 pm said:

Try balloon animals…or shaped balloons…

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Sean Michael Ragan on October 26th, 2009 at 8:38 pm said:

Great find, Matt. I would love to do this.

I would think you could cast around shapes made from crystallized salt or sugar, then dissolve/wash out the salt/sugar using water once the casting was complete.

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- JCoyote on October 26th, 2009 at 8:58 pm said:
  
  Or maybe just use the water? Under the right conditions, just use ice and let it melt out maybe? I’d need to know more about the exact formula he’s molding with first.
  
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charlie on October 26th, 2009 at 10:11 pm said:

translucent silicone is damn expensive. atleast the kind i use. expensive project, even considering the volume saved by the bubbles.

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- oleksiy on October 27th, 2009 at 12:10 pm said:
  
  Where would one buy so much silicone? Do you specifically cure it? Can you control the hardness of material? Looks amazing.
  
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  JCoyote on October 27th, 2009 at 2:18 pm said:
  
  Well the idea inspired me to research materials and you can find pourable molding silicone rubber materials in packages upwards of a 55 gallon drum.
  
  But, even if he used only say 3 gallons, it would cost him several hundred US dollars to make that chair for the silicone alone.
  
  (And it won’t pour or cure well at temperatures below the 60 Fahrenheit range so my ice idea is out. D’oh!)
  
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  Matt Mets on October 27th, 2009 at 2:21 pm said:
  
  I emailed the artist to see if he wants to share the material he used, hopefully he lets us know!
  
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Apis on October 27th, 2009 at 3:34 pm said:

It looks amazing, but is it comfortable? The consistensy of the silicone foam must be just right i guess. If it’s so expensive it might be very expensive to experiment!

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