ACRE for Furniture? Probably Not

A stick of ACRE clamped to my bending form, ready for heating.

I’ve never been eager to use manufactured wood substitutes in my work. With the exceptions of sheet goods (plywood, hardboard, MDF), most of these products were designed for the construction industry – not furniture. A lot of them contain plastic and are more expensive than plain old wood.

But recently I’ve been investigating and experimenting with ACRE. It’s a building material made using discarded rice bits and PVC (plastic). It resembles wood more than other “engineered boards.” But the reason ACRE interests me is that it can be easily bent into any shape by adding a little heat.¹

Some of the videos show the stuff turning into a flexible noodle after heating. The company that makes ACRE (Modern Mill) recommends a special oven or a silicone heating pad to do the job. I wondered if I could do it with a heat gun.

Why? To make bent armbows for chairs.

I’m always looking for ways to lower the cost of entry into chairmaking. Steambending wood needs significant gear: a steambox, steam generator, bending forms and clamps. And sourcing the right material for bending can be difficult. You can bend kiln-dried wood (sometimes). But it’s best to use green or air-dried wood that has been rived. That’s another barrier for some.

Then, after you bend the arm, you need to let it dry some more, either in a kiln for a few days (another thing to make) or sitting in a dry place for a week or two.

When I made my first armbow with ACRE, I cut the armbow out with a benchtop band saw, bent it around the form with the help of a cheap heating gun and then took it off the form. It was then ready to use in a chair. Elapsed time: 30 minutes at most.

Price? A stick of ACRE at Menards that makes four armbows is less than $20. So each armbow is $5. (As of this writing, Menards has that same stick on sale for $5….)²

All this seemed quite promising, but then I got out my lump hammer.