Peacock Throne: Design and Build Preparation

After deciding to make a peacock throne out of tires, I began sketching my design on paper. I soon realized that this wasn’t very helpful as circles are difficult to draw with correct perspective, and the relative sizes of the tires makes a big impact on the overall look. To remedy this issue I decided to model my project using SketchUp (computer aided design software). Although SketchUp isn’t ideal for engineering projects, it is a great option for general design work. I am quite familiar with SketchUp from my job and so it was easy for me to quickly create a working model.

Initially, I began with general tire dimensions and came up with the design of making the seat out of a car tire, and the base out of a car tire cut in half, where one half was placed right side up and the other half was placed upside down. Based on this I realized that I would need the tire cut in half to be smaller than the seat tire, and so I decided to go to a motorcycle store (House of Motorrad) to look for small tires. I found that motorcycle tires are generally the same size or larger than car tires, and it wouldn’t work to use the motorcycle tires as the base. However, motorcycle tire tread is curved which fits my aesthetic really well so I took a bunch of them home, hoping to use one of them for the seat. I then went to a car tire store (Discount Tires) to look for the smallest car tires I could find, to be used as the base.

Once I had all the tires collected I was able to start figuring out which ones I actually wanted to use for the project and which were too big or too small. I went back to my SketchUp model and updated the tires in the model with the actual dimensions of the tires that I had. This process revealed to me that I wouldn’t be able to find a bicycle tire big enough for the backrest that I wanted and so I would have to cut a bicycle tire in one place and spread it open to get the desired effect.

Now that I had chosen to use car tires as the base I had to try to cut one in half. I first started by trying to use a sawzall that Professor Hertzberg kindly learnt me, but unfortunately that didn’t work. I did some research and learned that an angle grinder would be the best option for this job. At the Idea Forge machine shop I learned that I could borrow an angle grinder, but would need to take it home to make the cuts, since the cutting process would be messy. I expected there to be lots of rubber waste and sparks (from the metal tire linings) but I wasn’t prepared for the volume of burnt rubber smoke that was generated. I began my first cut inside my garage but soon learned I would have to do it in the open air for the sake of my lungs, I also decided to do it in the mid-morning so none of my neighbors complained about the sound and smell.

After finishing the base-tire cutting I could start to put the chair together. This revealed that my half upright half upside down design actually wouldn’t be stable and also didn’t look good – somehow it was too complicated and I worried that it would draw the attention away from the peacock chair back, which is meant to be the focus of the piece.

I decided to go with a simpler base, as seen below. I attached the base to the seat using screws.

Lastly, I got mountain bike (no metal rim) and road bike (metal rim) tires from Community Cycles and have cut the mountain bike tires into strips using scissors for use as the mesh for the seat and back of the chair. I have also cut the road bike tires using wire cutters and scissors for use as the structure of the back and chair arms.