Nina R. Ligon

Stainless Steel & Birdseye Maple

Designed in Dave Beach's Design and Manufacturing course, Spice was my first experience building in the Product Realization Lab at Stanford. 

My first experience in the shop, building Spice was an exercise in patience and planning. I wanted to redesign the Thai spice set, or "kreung brung", to be more sharing focused. The design consists of 4 stainless steel spice containers that slide in and out of a wooden frame, and magnetically lock into place. The entire frame rotates, allowing everyone at the table a chance to season to taste. 

I silver brazed the containers out of steel cubes, milled tracks to enable them to slide in and out of the frame, and used a shop bot to cut out the wood pieces. Originally, the design was meant to be entirely wood, with the steel containers covered in wood veneer. However, when I loved the contrast of the steel and wood and chose to instead leave the containers uncovered and bead blast them for a matte finish.