Sand Casting a Designer Stool at the Beach

Craft & Design Workshop
Sand Casting a Designer Stool at the Beach

[vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/9498805 w=600&h=440]

Setting up shop on a beach in Cornwall, furniture maker Max Lamb meticulously freehands a mold in the sand from which he casts a rather modern-looking hexagonal stool from pewter heated over a camp fire. [via reddit]

Inspired by a childhood spent on the beaches of Cornwall building castles, boats and tunnels in the sand, I decided to return to my favourite beach at Caerhays on the south coast of Cornwall to produce a stool using a primitive form of sand-casting. Molten pewter was poured into a sand mould sculpted directly into the beach by hand, and once cooled the sand was dug away to reveal a pewter stool.

16 thoughts on “Sand Casting a Designer Stool at the Beach

  1. Dave Brunker (@dbrunker) says:

    I’d be a little concerned about steam explosions.

    1. ADrew says:

      Agreed. This would be a very poor idea with a higher melting point metal like aluminum. Foundry sand is not beach sand.

  2. miroslava von schlochbaum says:

    Something’s very odd about the commenting on makezine of late. there were six or more comments, all very constructive and not worthy of any censorship, for this article, and now -zap- there’s only one. ((now watch kiddies… -this- comment will disappear into the makezine-blog-triangle next))

    1. Adam Flaherty says:

      Odd. Each author manages their own comments. We take censorship very seriously. I haven’t removed any comments on this post, so I’m kind of curious what you’re talking about.

  3. tocs says:

    Well, as for my comment, I think this is pretty cool. One of these days I am going to have to try casting something. I just never thought about doing it at the beach.

  4. bluepearlgirl's world says:

    You are brilliant. And so clean! Really beautiful and smart… nice to be able to utilize the beach in artistic ways. Makes me want to salt fire some ceramics!

  5. rick says:

    With the concrete theme this month, you could do this same project but cast concrete instead… And you wouldn’t have to worry about steam splattering molten metal back on you as you poured.

  6. Jyasper « jyasper.com says:

    […] very basic tools, furniture maker Max Lamb carves out a hexagonal mold in the sand and fills […]

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