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Salvage furniture: Plane Industries revitalises cast-offs

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Salvage experts


Tables from wings and chairs from windows… Plane Industries takes recycling to new heights


I t’s certainly a statement piece. Despite the bottles and glasses in position behind its doors, its gleaming curves and nose-cone give away its original purpose. This is a drinks cabinet whose original purpose was far more sinister. It was once a bomb.

‘That was the first really ambitious product that we built,’ explains Harry Tucker, one of the founders of Plane Industries. ‘Until then, everything we were doing felt relatively straightforward. That was the piece that threw us in at the deep end and made us learn really quickly.’

Harry and his brother, Ben, began their aviation-focused design and furniture business in 2012 despite having no formal training in the sector.

Harry says: ‘We grew up on a farm, so we were always pretty hands-on, but we didn’t have any engineering background as such. We’re pretty much self-taught.’

The pair began by buying up a few parts from scrapped aircraft and then working on them in what they describe as a ‘small shed’.


‘We try to stay away from sourcing bits of rare aircraft to turn into furniture.’


A stand at the Grand Designs trade show pulled in a few more orders and they were signed up to produce objects for Red Bull, among others.

Now, five years on, Plane Industries has a niche in its market and a growing reputation for creative and innovative design as well as signature pieces – bringing its own unique approach to the business of recycling.

Says Harry: ‘Our business partner runs a facility in the Cotswolds [Air Salvage International] which breaks around 10 per cent of the world’s [retired] aircraft. This means we have access to all sorts of parts and these form the backbone of our product line.’

For example, the firm produces a chair crafted from the engine cowling of a Boeing 737. As anyone who has ever stood next to one of these will testify, it is a pretty significant chair that requires a decent amount of space.


‘We grew up on a farm, so we were always pretty hands-on, but we didn’t have any engineering background as such. We’re pretty much self-taught.’


‘We’re now known by just about everyone in the [plane breaking] industry,’ continues Harry, ‘and we’ve got to know them, too. It’s quite a small world. We have a long list of people to call if we need particular parts for a job. On the one side we’re sourcing items from breakers and, on the other, we’re supplying quite a few products to auxiliary companies within the industry.’

While aeroplanes provide much of the raw material for the company’s creations, it is more focused on the appearance and dramatic impact of the final object than the model of aircraft that supplied the raw material.

‘We try to stay away from sourcing bits of rare aircraft to turn into furniture,’ admits Harry. ‘Our aim is to be less about the heritage and more about the design and creativity. That’s the opposite of some of the companies out there – they’re more about taking a piece of a particular aircraft then sticking on some legs and a bit of glass to create a table.

‘We don’t want to do that. We’d rather add as much value as possible and create pieces that can’t be replicated very easily. In that respect we’ve created a niche for ourselves. We’re open to requests when customers want something unique, but that doesn’t necessarily have to involve a specific [type of] aircraft.’

There are solid business reasons why the firm isn’t pushing bespoke orders harder. It’s still a very lean outfit, involving just a handful of people, and the Tucker brothers are keen at the moment to focus as much of their energy as possible into developing their core products.

‘Bespoke requests can take a lot longer,’ adds Harry, ‘though, having said that, we’re always open to hearing what people want and doing new things. We like the idea of doing bespoke pieces from a personal perspective, but they can be a complete pain from a business perspective.’


While aeroplanes provide much of the raw material for the company’s creations, it is more focused on the appearance and dramatic impact of the final object than the model of aircraft that supplied the raw material


That iconically dramatic drinks cabinet is a case in point, he adds. ‘It’s unique and beautiful, but it’s also the bane of our lives.’

Part of the reason for this is the rather controversial raw material involved – its original use was as a practice bomb, used by the RAF to hone pilots’ low-level skills.

‘We sourced a few of them through one of our contacts,’ explains Harry. ‘Although I’m not sure the guy offering them was supposed to have them, because they were supposed to be have been scrapped by the Ministry of Defence.’

While their provenance may have been debatable, the former weapons had something that appealed to the brothers’ creative side.

‘They look so fascinating and they have this unmistakable profile,’ Harry says. ‘They were also something that took us into the art world. We had a gallery exhibition for a month and we realised that making something from a bomb is quite controversial and divides opinion.’

Some felt this was a ‘swords-into-ploughshares’ scenario, with an inherently lethal object transformed into a thing of beauty. Others were less enthusiastic, wondering if the cabinet might be seen as glorifying warfare.

Either way, Harry remarks, it was certainly a conversation piece. ‘If you’re making things that don’t evoke any emotion then you’re probably not doing it right,’ he adds.

Close proximity to the breakers’ business has also led to other experiments, one of which led to a limited edition luggage line.


'I’m not sure the guy offering them was supposed to have them, because they were supposed to be have been scrapped by the Ministry of Defence.’


Harry explains: ‘We became increasingly fascinated with all the parts nobody else was using. We learned, for example, that a huge volume of the material used in airliner seats was going to landfill. We wondered what we could do with it and came up with this idea for luggage, which we had made in the UK to a really high standard.’

While recognising that accessories such as this might be something the firm revisits, the focus is now firmly on the core business.

This year’s additions include a smaller, more accessible version of the aero engine chair, crafted from the engine cowling of a BAE 146, in addition to a table made from a 3m length of fuselage, another featuring the leading edge from a wing and a chair that has been shaped from acrylic airliner windows.

‘We’re both young and ambitious and eventually we’re looking at a much wider market,’ adds Harry, ‘but for now we’re concentrating on the original, eye-catching furniture that we’re known for.’

planeindustries.com

Words: DH

This article was originally published in Halcyon magazine in 2018


1 Comment

  1. Helen Edwards says:

    Looks fabulous but I personally prefer to recycle pallets and other free stuff

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