A short interview with Thomas Thwaites: The handmade toaster builder

July 11, 2009

Thomas Thwaites is trying to build a toaster from scratch, by hand, by himself. As I tried to explain in the previous post I think that this is just about the coolest art project ever. Luckily for us he thinks Shapeways is, “totally great, bringing on of the future!” and so he answered a few of my questions.

On the Toaster Project web page he details all of his challenges. He has videos of smelting iron ore in a leaf blower furnace and lots more on the project website. Everyone’s favorite video seems to be the one of him trying to smelt iron ore in a microwave. My personal favorite is the one of the Argos toaster that he is trying to ‘replicate.’ It is embedded below and fantastic.

Argos Value Range 2 Slice Toaster from Thomas Thwaites on Vimeo.

He takes a simple cheap every day household item the “Argos Value Range 2 Slice Toaster” and bombards it with all the fetishism and bombast usually reserved for more ‘deserving’ things such as cars. It shows us that he is serious about his subject, his challenge.

Joris: What was the most difficult thing to do so far?
Thomas: Making the iron (originally I was planning on making steel, but as iron was so difficult I realised that steel for now is well out of reach of ‘the common man’). My first attempt at smelting in a furnace burning coke melted the ore – and I think I refined it to some degree, but the black hard, magnetic, metallic tasting lump that I got out at the end wasn’t workable into toaster shapes. I therefore resorted to the microwave smelting – that took a lot of experimentation with different times, crucibles, mixtures of coke and partially refined ore, etc. I got workable iron in the end though, but it was a long process.

Joris: Are you bored with mass production?
Thomas: I think mass production is quite amazing as a system, the look of most products is quite boring… and even highly ‘designed’ stuff by ‘designers’ I find a bit dull; I went into one of those ‘design’ shops in Rotterdam and was just quite bored by the kind of witty takes on objects that it was filled with. I think the aesthetic of ‘products’ needs to become a bit more raw – less smooth cases covering everything. I also think that the authenticity of making something yourself is extremely important.

Joris: What made you take on this project?
People getting out of touch with technology and divorced from it because of its complexity?
Thomas: I was curious to see if I could do it, but I also wanted to add something to the debate around the environmental/economic crisis. The need to buy less stuff to protect the environment, and the ‘need’ to buy more stuff to maintain the economy seem to be on a collision course. There’s a feeling in some circles that we should retreat to self-sufficient ways of life – I wanted to investigate what this would mean.

Joris: Could I buy your toaster?
Thomas: Yes, but it would cost A LOT more than the £3.94 ‘value’ version on which it was based! It is after all, unique…

Congrats to Thomas for his now working toaster and this fantastic project! He is basically doing by himself for one thing what Shapeways, in due time, wants to do together with you for all things.