mdt.re

All my experiments in wood and design are done in a small communal workshop located in Osnabrück. My background in theoretical physics and my upbringing within a family of carpenters give me both a deep understanding and intuition for the material wood. On top of that, I work mainly with hand tools and traditional machinery which enhances the creative process and allows for more attention to detail. On this page you can find some impressions from my workshop and the machines and tools I work with. It only requires three machines for working with solid wood: a jointer-planer, a table saw and a drill press. I complement this with a super surfacer, which makes part of the handplaning less cumbersome, and allows me to obtain a superior wood surfaces.

A major focus of my workshop experimentation centers on novel wood joinery techniques and wood bending through thermo-hydro-mechanical processes. In steam bending, heat and moisture temporarily soften the lignin matrix within the wood fibers, allowing solid wood to be bent into curves. The same process can also be applied to glueless joinery techniques. Both require a steam source, for which I use an old steam generator for ironing and several jigs and bending straps. Since the jigs must be adapted to each design and experiment on a case by case basis I design and construct them myself.