Thread: bending and laminating ply

I think that without a full set of engineering drawings....

and

Without a testing of the timbers......

Etc., etc., etc.

Also while I don't know the exact purpose, location and fitting to other bits....

SOME flexing may be good.....

But are you also including the "trip over the cat in the dark" loads? Which can easily be 3 or 4 times as high as a static and gently placed load.

And they can be "peculiarly applied" through the unit...

What may be a reasonably stable unit, with some side loading and a doubling of the force = instant collapse.

I'd design ONE unit to what you think "seems to be about right" and then apply rigorous tests to it - in combination with the other things that it has to mate with....

And if it passes the test; great, if not examine the points of failure and redesign to reinforce or redistribute the loads and how they FLOW through the chain of parts.

I think it's worth doing these things properly - because people can get disfigured, maimed, and seriously injured through poorly designed furniture.....

You know like folding chairs that cut off fingers, or seat bases that don't - resulting in "rectal impalement" on the seat post; or getting skewered through the guts when one side breaks leaving a sharp pointy broken stick to fall on, or they break their necks, or their arms in the fall etc......

I mean there are a lot of people who die just slipping up in the bath....

There are some things like chess pieces - and it doesn't really matter what they are made from or how they are made - be it plastic, pine or platinum; but there are things where it does matter, and furniture is one of them.

Furniture is like bicycles - best built properly.