Shaped By Steam: Making The Green Range
"A celebration of sustainable, biophillic design and traditional craftsmanship, The Green Range is born from the nature that inspires it"
– Founder, Tom Raffield.
Steamed to perfection
Each Green Range planter is hand-shaped using sustainably sourced wood and created as a sculptural piece of art using our pioneering form of steam bending.
Following Tom’s well-renowned, innovative steam-filled bag technique, our workshop team steam small sections of wood for a carefully calculated amount of time (we use the old school inch-per hour rule).
The hot-to-the-touch wood is then carefully and speedily removed from the steamer and ready to be bent around a handcrafted, Green Range jig.
Getting jiggy with it
Each steam bending jig used to form our iconic designs is the result of hours of hard work, innovation and experimentation. To achieve the consistent bends necessary for our Green Range’s uniform aesthetic, our product development team ensure our jigs are accurate down to the very last millimetre and measured to precision.
Aided by the Green Range jigs, our steamed solid oak is quickly manipulated, twisted and bent by hand into beautifully dramatic and complex forms, then clamped into position.
All dried out
The steamed wood is then taken to our heated drying room and left to fully dehydrate for anywhere between 24-72 hours (dependent on the intended final design).
Drying the oak after steaming is an important process as it allows any moisture still trapped in the wood grain to escape - meaning the Green Range products are less likely to twist out of their elaborate shapes once assembled.
Skilfully handcrafted
Fresh from the drying room, each length of oak is un-clamped from its specialist jig then marked, sawed, cut, drilled, belt sanded, hand sanded and edged into shape.
Expertly branded
Each Green Range planter is then branded with the Tom Raffield logo, assembled by hand and finished with our eco-friendly natural oil blend to give a crisp, matt finish.
No chemicals. No additives. No production line.
Just handcrafted, unique steam bent planters that invite the outdoors in.
Posted: 15.08.18
Updated: 08.06.23