You undoubtedly know this chair, the Eames Plywood Chair LCW (Lounge Chair Wood):

These days they're undoubtedly made in a fancy press, but you might be wondering how Charles and Ray managed to mold the plywood back in the '40s.

The answer, according to Vitra, is this thing below, which the Eameses called the "Kazam! machine."

Incredibly, the story behind getting it to work involves Charles climbing a pole to tap into power lines:

Reading the power line thing makes me queasy. If he'd gotten that wrong, our furniture landscape would be very different today.

Ive always been fascinated by this thing, sneaking around in the background of a scant couple photos. Nice to finally see a high-quality color photo of it!

I’m a lapsed industrial designer. I was born in NYC and figured I’d die there, but a few years ago I abandoned New York to live on a farm in the countryside with my wife. We have six dogs.

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