After the Pilot Project

MATERIALS WORLD FEATURE Angle grinders and aeroplane bellies Left: A chair that rocks on two large Waller pads outside in bare feet, his bandaged thumb pointing across the water. It is fuselage ribs. only a mile from one of the UK’s commercial arteries, but the river is peaceful. The After the summer sky ripples on its mud-brown complexion. Lime-green algae stain the banks. There’s An ancient tugboat hugs the dock below. The owners bought the boat for £1 on something condition that they kept it in service. Waller and Dwyer also rejuvenate the obsolete, very satisfying but they must make a living in the process. pilot project During the TV programme, the designers had to find ways of upcycling every about last fibre of the aeroplane. Now, they have the luxury of the smash-and-grab job. [upcycling] Whenever they hear of a decommissioned aeroplane arriving in Durham Tees Valley things that International Airport (featuring complementary scrapyard), they pack their angle grinder and haggling boots, and make for the north. Once aboard a knackered Is it a bird box? Is it a plane? Eoin Redahan visited the would have aeroplane, they quickly set about denuding the craft of its armrest covers, magazine Aircraft Workshop in London, where decommissioned been thrown racks and air ducting. aeroplanes turn into the unexpected. away. Waller says, ‘If you know the rest of the aeroplane is going to scrap, you can just take an angle grinder to the belly of it – knowing what bits of the pipes make good bird boxes – and cut them out. During the programme, with every little bolt we were thinking, “Well, one of the others might want to use this.”’ speeding truck brushed dust into the morning sunlight. As the fizz fell lean, easy-going friend from art school and former There is a sensible reason behind this narrowed away, the road to Canary Wharf appeared in sharper focus. A pair of bandmate (Dwyer played keyboard as Waller sang for focus. Some items made on the show are simply suited city boys walked towards the city before veering unexpectedly the Rumble Strips). too labour-intensive to be commercially viable. As left, away from the thoroughfare and towards the river. These rogues ‘I wanted to get Charlie to come and do it because impressive as rickshaws and domed playhouses are, A– these creatures out of habitat – ambled along winding dockland streets, past I knew he’d be better than an engineer,’ Dwyer says. they don’t pay the rent like a good armrest coat crumbling warehouses, weeds, murals and renovated ship containers, until they ‘It was actually a better way of working because we’re hook. Other items, such as the stainless steel eggcups, found an eatery on Trinity Buoy Wharf. more interested in doing the unusual.’ cannot be made for a different reason. ‘We tried to Had they followed the path a little further, they would have seen the Aircraft These unfettered thoughts turned aeroplane seats get more of the eggcups,’ Dwyer explains, ‘but they’re Workshop simmering on the sleepy side of the Thames. Had they peeked inside, into rickshaws, aluminium fuselage into a domed actually valuable pieces of aviation equipment. they would have seen a rocking chair made from an aeroplane seat and rows of pagoda, wing flap bearings into egg cups, plastic tray They form part of the flaps on the wings. When coat hooks that once lived as armrest covers. And they would also have seen Harry tables into magazine racks and curving, resin-fibre manufacturers send out spare flaps, they send these Dwyer and Charlie Waller, the designers responsible for these clever creations. ventilation pipes into bird boxes. bearings with them. They’re probably worth £500.’ The Their fellow designers were equally innovative. eggcups from the show sold for £22 each. From Rumble Strips to rickshaws Scrap metal expert Paul Firbank cut and polished Pricing upcycled products is tricky when there are aluminium seat bases to make futuristic desk lamps, few bases for comparison. As with many products, the The Aircraft Workshop owes its origins to Kevin McCloud and his Supersized and fashioned lampshades from the miles of disused Aircraft Workshop products are prone to the public’s Salvage TV show. The tall, properly-spoken presenter of Channel 4’s Grand Designs wiring, while fellow designer Max McMurdo turned elastic whims. On the one hand, Waller and Dwyer fronted the programme in which a group of designers created saleable products hunks of fuselage into office studios, complete with could charge £100 for an item that cost 50p in the from a decommissioned Airbus A320 – an aeroplane that was destined for death by cloud-peering portholes. scrap dealer’s. On the other hand, they sometimes landfill. Dwyer and Waller were among the chosen, albeit in a roundabout way. After four months of freewheeling rickshaws, struggle to fetch fair prices for high-quality, labour- Dwyer says, ‘A friend of a friend was working on it and he was looking for inflatable life jacket bags and aluminium sofas, the intensive products. Their hexagonal dog bed features people. I know a lot of designer-makers, so he asked me about it. I was involved programme aired to an agreeable public. Murdo and a moulded sprung-foam base and a durable, washable as more of a consultant than anything. I went along and they said, “Oh why don’t Firbank shuffled off stage and back to their private seat cover. Yet, despite the quality of the ingredients, you do a casting?” It was a running joke where everyone kept saying, “The Casting endeavours, but for Dwyer and Waller, the show wasn’t how many people will pay £145 for a dog’s bed? Director really likes you. You’re still in it.”’ over. In March, they created the Aircraft Workshop to Weight is also an issue when it comes to creating And part of it he became. The producers saw the darkly bearded Dwyer as streamline their aircraft creations and sail the tailwind saleable items. Dwyer explains, ‘Everything is curved something of a wildcard, someone who was willing to give form to bizarre ideas. of public goodwill. ‘If you can’t get a business to make and thin on an aeroplane. It is quite difficult finding They asked him to enlist a work partner for the programme. Despite the producers’ money with a million pound TV advert, you must be something heavy. When you want to make something preference for an engineer, Dwyer insisted on working with Charlie Waller, a terrible,’ Dwyer says. ‘So we must be pretty bad.’ 32 MATERIALS WORLD JANUARY 2015 JANUARY 2015 MATERIALS WORLD 33 MATERIALS WORLD FEATURE Right: Creating new Right: The titanium toast products from an rack is made from the Airbus A320. cargo bay door hinge. You can also eat your Bottom: A rickshaw egg from an aeroplane’s made from fuselage wing drive shaft. The and seats. eggcup is finished using a glass powder-coating and has stainless steel legs. Bottom: According to the Aircraft Workshop, ‘There are 10 eggcups in every Airbus A320. They are made from wing flag drive shaft bearings, which are located inside the wing along the leading edge.’ that feels like high-quality to sell, you want it to be heavy. Weirdly, the eggcups felt make a bird box out of an aeroplane. Then, when we solid, because they were made from solid pieces of milled steel.’ were rooting around, Charlie found the pipes.’ The rest, So, as some oblivious customer eats her egg from a £500 piece of advanced as no one said, was fibre resin birdbox history. Wing flap bearing Five bearings per main wing aviation technology, Dwyer and Waller are busy cutting and polishing other Another method is to look at an object and see what salvaged components. They are mass-producing magazine racks and creating three, it can be turned into. For example, an aeroplane’s cargo five and nine-hook coat hangers for sale in Elemental, in nearby Shoreditch. ‘We’re bay door hinge looked uncannily like a toast rack. Waller trying to blitz the hooks,’ Dwyer says. ‘If we can get a really good stock of them, we says, ‘After you see something that looks like a toast can drop the price right down and have quite a lot of sales, instead of sitting around rack, you think, “Maybe we can make a breakfast set. Is waiting for one big sale.’ there something we can make an egg cup out of?”’ They are also finishing their rocking chair, though this is mainly for the While the immediate focus is on aeroplanes, Dwyer satisfaction of having brought an imagined object into reality. and Waller are keen to re-use all manner of vehicles and machinery that would ordinarily get scrapped, Hook me an idea melted down or sent to landfill. In this respect, the Aircraft Workshop is a small, but significant part of A bin full of aluminium rests. A clock made from a Soviet plane’s EXIT sign keeps the waste solution. Dwyer says, ‘Recently, we went Cyrillic time on the wall. The rocking chair’s fuselage base awaits bolting. Coat hooks out to Jaguar Land Rover. They talked about recycling, bask in a square of sunlight. What trails of mind bring these objects into being? how you can keep materials within a loop and the How can you look at a tired old aeroplane and see a toast rack? extra environmental impact of different processes. The ‘There are a good few tricks,’ Dwyer notes. ‘One way is to come up with products Far left: In true Terry’s actual recycling of material uses a lot of energy, so, if regardless of what you’re making them out of.

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