When I started out I thought being a designer meant doing the design. The sketch. The concept. The creative process. The 3D. Manufacturing was someone else's problem.
I studied 3D animation, not furniture or industrial design. I learned about form, surface, light, and how objects exist in space. Then I spent seven years at General Motors in the design department, where I learned something that no animation school could have taught me: that the surface you design and the process that makes it are the same conversation. At GM you could not propose a form without understanding how it would be stamped, welded, or molded. The manufacturing was not downstream from the design. It was part of it from the first sketch.
When I left GM and started Bend Goods, I thought that background would be enough. It was a foundation, but wire furniture had its own language. And I had to learn it from scratch, the same way I always have. By picking up objects and reverse engineering them. Working backwards from the finished thing to every step that produced it.
Wire Drawing: Thin Solid Metal
This is where Bend Goods began. The Lucy Chair, our first piece, is made from solid wire. Before that wire existed, it was a rod of raw steel pulled through a series of progressively smaller dies until it reached the precise diameter we needed.
Wire drawing is a deceptively simple process that does something remarkable: it makes the steel stronger. Pulling the metal through dies aligns the grain structure and increases tensile strength in ways that the raw rod cannot match. The wire that makes a Lucy Chair is stronger than the steel it came from.
At Bend Goods we specify wire gauge precisely depending on application. Finer gauges for the intricate geometric patterns in the seat. Heavier gauges for structural frame elements. Getting the gauge right is one of the first design decisions, not an afterthought.
Tube Extrusion and Bending: Hollow Thick Metal
The Tube Collection starts with a completely different process. Molten metal is forced through a die under enormous pressure to create a continuous hollow tube of precise diameter and wall thickness. This is extrusion. The tube is then cut to length and bent into the curves and angles that give each piece its character.
Bending hollow tube is harder than it sounds. Metal wants to kink at the bend point. The outer wall thins and the inner wall collapses unless you control the process carefully. Two techniques prevent this. Mandrel bending inserts a steel rod inside the tube to support it from within. Sand filling, an older method, packs the tube with fine sand that distributes the bending force evenly and prevents the walls from buckling.
Each technique produces subtly different results. The choice of method affects the minimum radius you can achieve, the surface quality of the bend, and ultimately the visual character of the finished piece. These are design decisions made on the factory floor, not in the studio.
Sheet Metal: Bending, Pressing, Corrugating, Spinning
Flat sheet metal is one of the most versatile starting points in metalworking, and the range of what you can do with it is surprising.
Sheet can be bent along a straight line using a press brake, creating angles and folds. Two bent pieces can be welded at the corner, then ground smooth for a seamless appearance. What looks like a single continuous form is often several bent pieces joined invisibly.
Sheet can be pressed into three-dimensional curves using a die and a press. The force of the press forms the flat sheet into a bowl, a shell, a complex curved surface. This is how car body panels are made. It is also how many furniture components are formed.
Sheet can be corrugated. Running flat sheet through a corrugating machine creates a series of parallel ridges that transform a thin, flexible material into something structurally rigid. Corrugation is one of the most efficient uses of material in manufacturing. It is why corrugated cardboard is so strong and why corrugated metal roofing can span large distances without support.
Metal spinning is a process I find particularly beautiful to watch. A flat disc of thin sheet metal is mounted on a lathe and rotated at high speed. A tool is then pressed against the spinning disc and gradually pushed down and outward against a form. The metal flows under pressure, thinning and stretching until it takes the shape of the mold beneath it. Spinning creates circular, bowl-like forms: lamp shades, vessel shapes, decorative elements. It is an ancient process that looks almost magical in practice.
Perforating: Where Light Enters the Design
Perforation is what I consider one of the most under appreciated processes in metal fabrication. A punch press drives a hardened steel punch through sheet metal at high speed, repeating a pattern of holes across the entire surface with mechanical precision.
We use perforation in our tube chair seat and back. The practical benefits are real: reduced weight, visual lightness, air circulation. But what we discovered on the factory floor was something we had not anticipated. The holes create shadows. Light passing through a perforated metal surface projects the hole pattern onto the floor and walls around it, creating a constantly shifting shadow drawing that changes with the sun and the time of day.
We did not design that shadow pattern sitting at a desk. We discovered it holding a perforated sample up to a window in the factory. That is what I mean when I say factories are where design happens.
Casting: Pouring Form from Liquid Metal
Casting is the process I remember most vividly from those childhood factory tours in Detroit. Molten metal glowing in a ladle, poured into a mold, cooling into a solid form that could not be achieved any other way.
Casting allows complex organic shapes that bending, pressing, or spinning cannot produce. The liquid metal flows into every corner of the mold before solidifying. Cast iron and cast aluminum are the most common furniture applications. Cast pieces tend to be heavier than formed sheet metal but they have a solidity and permanence that some applications demand.
The tradeoff is tooling cost. Creating a casting mold is expensive, which makes casting most economical at higher production volumes. For smaller runs, other processes are more practical.
CNC Machining and Milling
CNC stands for computer numerical control. A CNC machine follows a digitally programmed path to cut, drill, or mill metal with extraordinary precision and repeatability. The same operation can be performed identically thousands of times without variation.
CNC machining starts with solid stock and removes material to create the final form. Milling uses rotating cutting tools to remove metal from a workpiece. Drilling creates precise holes. The combination can produce complex three-dimensional forms directly from digital files.
For furniture applications, CNC is most commonly used for components that require tight tolerances: brackets, connectors, hardware, and structural elements where precision matters for fit and function.
Water Jet and Laser Cutting
Both processes cut flat sheet metal with precision, but they work differently and produce different results.
Water jet cutting fires a stream of water mixed with abrasive particles at extremely high pressure through a tiny nozzle. It cuts through metal without generating heat, which means no heat-affected zone, no warping, no change to the material properties at the cut edge. Water jet can cut almost any material and almost any thickness.
Laser cutting uses a focused beam of light to melt and vaporize metal along a programmed path. It is faster than water jet for thinner materials and produces a very clean, precise edge. The cut edge on steel has a slight oxide layer. On aluminum it is bright and clean. These differences matter for how the edge looks and how it takes finishing.
Both processes can cut any shape that can be described digitally, which makes them ideal for complex patterns and custom components without expensive dedicated tooling.
Surface Finishing: Where Metal Becomes an Object
The finishing process is where raw fabricated metal becomes a designed object. It is also where the most visible design decisions are made. Every Bend Goods piece goes through finishing. It is not the last step. It is one of the most important steps.
Powder coating is the hero finish for our category. The metal frame is grounded and dry powder, a mixture of pigment and resin, is sprayed on through an electrostatic gun. The charged powder adheres to every surface including edges and recesses that wet paint cannot reach. The piece goes into an oven where the powder melts into a continuous film and cures into a finish that is harder, more durable, and more flexible than conventional wet paint.
For outdoor furniture, powder coating's resistance to chipping, fading, and corrosion is essential. For Bend Goods specifically, the color range it enables is fundamental to the brand. Any color that can be formulated as a powder can be applied to metal. The neon lemons, peacock blues, and glossy coppers of our collections exist because of powder coating.
Anodizing is a different finishing process used primarily on aluminum. An electrochemical reaction creates an oxide layer on the surface that is extremely hard and corrosion resistant. Anodizing is integral to the metal rather than a coating applied on top of it, which means it cannot chip or peel. The color range is more limited than powder coating but the durability in certain environments is exceptional.
Polishing removes surface imperfections through progressive abrasion, creating a mirror or brushed finish. Chrome plating deposits a thin layer of chromium onto a metal surface through electroplating, creating the highly reflective finish that defined mid-century metal furniture. Sandblasting propels fine abrasive particles at the metal surface to create a matte, textured finish that scatters light rather than reflecting it. Heat treating changes the internal structure of metal through controlled heating and cooling, altering hardness, strength, and flexibility without changing the outward appearance.
Combining Processes: Where Design Gets Interesting
The most interesting metal objects combine multiple processes. Understanding each process individually is important. Understanding how to combine and exaggerate them is where real design freedom begins.
A single Bend Goods tube chair involves extrusion, tube bending, sheet metal forming, perforation, MIG welding, grinding, and powder coating. Each step is a design decision. The wall thickness of the tube affects the bend radius. The bend radius affects the highlight. The highlight affects the visual character of the form. The perforation pattern affects the shadow. The powder coat color affects everything.
Once you understand the processes you start to see them everywhere. You pick up a random object and you can read it. You see where the sheet was bent, where the weld was ground, how the surface was finished. The made world becomes legible in a way it wasn't before.
That is what I wish someone had taught me in design school. Not just how to sketch a chair but how to read one. How to understand the conversation between the designer's intention and the process that made it real.
The Hidden Art
I love factories. I know that sounds strange coming from a furniture designer. But factories are where the hidden art lives. The general public thinks products just appear. They don't see the wire drawing machines or the tube bending fixtures or the powder coating ovens. They don't see the supply chain that turns raw steel into a chair. They sit in the finished object and experience the design without ever knowing how it came to exist.
I think that invisibility is worth challenging. The processes I have described here are not just technical details. They are design decisions. They are the reason a Bend Goods chair looks the way it looks, feels the way it feels, casts the shadows it casts. The manufacturing is not separate from the design. It is the design made real.
We are always learning. There are processes I have not mastered. There are combinations I have not tried. There are materials that still surprise me. After fifteen years of making things from metal, every factory visit still teaches me something new.
That is the other thing they don't tell you in design school. The learning never stops. And that is not a problem. That is the best part.
