Unusual items made from wood
Wood is remarkable. It is incredibly strong and also flexible. It can be extremely dense and hard, or incredibly soft and light like balsa wood, so insubstantial it’s used to make simple toy aeroplanes that actually fly, powered by nothing more sophisticated than a rubber band.
Wood can be carved into intricate and delicate patterns. It can be steamed, pressed and bent into unlikely shapes for unexpected uses.
Wood is used for a whole host of things, some ordinary and some not so ordinary. Here are a few of the more unusual items that have been made from wood.
Wooden Vespa
Carlos Alberto, a Portuguese craftsman, made a fully working wooden Vespa by hand. The vespa took ten months to make and was carved out of ten different types of wood, including rosewood and ebony wood and has an original 1957 Vespa engine. It is capable of speeds of up to 46 mph and weighs nearly 107kg, which is 20 more than the original 1950's model.
Wooden Wall-E
This was commissioned by Disney as a gift for Pixar/Disney chief creative officer John Lasseter and is a limited edition of one. It was created in the UK by Hertfordshire based sculptors and CNC/rapid-prototyping masters Morpheus.
Wooden Car
Ukrainian Vasily Lazarenko designed the car in wood. Underneath the wood the car is a 1981 Opel, and the design on top is split into two, one half has a roof and the other half a cabriolet.
