Velcro is awesome. Whoever thought of using two fabric strips (one with tiny hooks and another with small loops) to hold things together is a downright genius. Everything would have Velcro fasteners on them if it were up to me! But alas, that can’t be the case, or can it?
YouTuber KURAHITO thought the idea of Velcro was so unique and simple that he tried applying it to wood. By chiseling different sized hooks and fasteners, he set out to see if you could stick two wood blocks together without any adhesive. The results are interesting, to say the least:
Instead of adding tiny wooden fasteners to a woodblock (that would take too long to make), KURAHITO solely opted to carve hooks onto his woodblocks. This made things harder, as the hooks had to latch onto each other for the woodblocks to stick precisely.
His first attempt with more curved, Velcro-like hooks failed, as they were far too long and couldn’t get a good grip. To remedy this, he flattened the hooks, creating these jagged splinters which would pierce the other piece of wood to hold it in place.
With a proof of concept, KURAHITO tried carving different splinters onto the wood. Further testing proved that the splinters have to be a specific size (not too small and not too big) for them to latch onto each other.
Wide splinters are fine and can even work with splinters of a different type, provided both meet the exact length requirements. In theory, you can even use this fastening technique on different types of wood, though bamboo may not be the best wood to test this out.
If you’re tired of using adhesive to stick your wood together, you can try chiseling some splinters into them. It won’t be as secure, but you’ll be able to say that whatever it is you made is 100% wood!
