If you have ever run a finger along the smooth curve of a bentwood chair, you have touched one of furniture making’s oldest tricks: convincing straight wood to hold a curve. At Howulike, we make that happen every day for brands, hotels and distributors around the world. Here is how a chair travels from a drawing on your desk to a carton on a ship.
1. It Starts With Your Drawing
Every OEM and ODM project begins the same way: with your idea. That might be a full technical drawing, a photo of a vintage chair, or a sketch on a napkin. Our engineering team turns it into precise CAD files, checks it for production feasibility and proposes adjustments — angle, thickness, joinery — that keep the design beautiful while keeping it manufacturable at scale.
2. Mould Making: Where Curves Are Born
Bent wood takes its shape from moulds. We CNC-machine a pair of moulds for every curve: a male and female form pressed together around the wood. The accuracy of these moulds decides the accuracy of every chair that follows, which is why mould making is the step we invest in most heavily. For a new design, mould development typically takes two to three weeks.
3. Steam Bending and Plywood Moulding
Depending on the design, we use two techniques. Solid wood slats are steam-softened in high-pressure chambers, then bent inside the moulds and left to stabilise. For laminated curves, thin layers of hardwood veneer are glued, stacked and pressed into the mould. Both methods produce the fluid, continuous lines bentwood is famous for — with no joints breaking the curve.
4. CNC Precision and Hand Finishing
After bending, five-axis CNC milling trims each component to its final geometry: clean edges, exact holes, perfect joinery. From there, parts are sanded, assembled and finished by hand — stains, lacquers and oils are applied in controlled layers so the surface feels as good as it looks. Upholstery, woven cords and cane details are added last, by people who have done it for decades.
5. Quality Control, Piece by Piece
Every chair is checked before packing: frame alignment, finish consistency, load testing on joints. Export-grade packaging — foam corners, layered cartons — is standard, because furniture that survives a 30-day sea journey without a scratch is not luck. It is process.
6. From Foshan to Your Warehouse
Our factory sits in Foshan, Guangdong — the furniture heart of southern China. With nearby ports and years of export experience, we handle documentation, container loading and worldwide shipping. Flexible order quantities mean you can start with a trial container and scale as your market grows.
Choosing a manufacturing partner? Read our guide on how to evaluate a bentwood chair manufacturer.
Start Your Bentwood Project
Whether you need a single custom prototype or a full production run, the process above is the same — and it starts with a conversation. Send us your drawings for a quote, and see your design in bent wood within weeks.