[HH] CNC automation to produce laminate wood furniture

[Tom Metro]

http://gigaom.com/2013/10/06/this-secretive-startup-plans-to-3d-print-custom-affordable-wood-furniture/

  This secretive startup plans to 3D print custom, affordable wood
  furniture

  4 AXYZ founder and CEO Samir Shah has an idea. Instead of working with
  layers of cheap wood, he wants to work with layers of nice wood. And
  he'll do it with 3D printing.

  "Effectively what you're seeing is solid wood furniture is too
  expensive and quality is dropping. We have something that is not
  rocket science, even though it is patent pending," Shah said.

They show a picture of a chair that has the outline of a LazyBoy, except
it is hollow and appears to be made of plywood...plywood that is almost
entirely curved. This sort of curved laminate furniture is not exactly
new, but in the past they were high-end, expensive, hand-built
sculptures. This company is claiming they can do this with "mass
customization" techniques.


  4 AXYZ won't disclose how the technology works. Shah said the big
  secret is how the machine cuts the wood and secures layers together.
  The company is currently looking for investors.

Disappointingly, the article never explains how the tech works. We're
left to speculate that it is something like a CNC laminate cutter, and
some other automation for assembling the layers and forming the curves.

Technically, it has no resemblance to "printing" at all. It's just a
specialized CNC. (But I guess your article gets more hits if you label
it 3D printing.)

 -Tom