Olympus says it has found a way to compress wood so hard it becomes stronger than engineering plastics such as ABS and polycarbonate resins – so hard in fact that it’s strong enough to be used as casing for their camera. And that’s what they have shown at last week’s Photokina photo industry expo in Cologne.
The wooden camera looks beautiful indeed, with its natural color, patina, and the warm feel of wood grain in your hand. Olympus said to create this beauty they developed a three-dimensional compression moulding process that draws extensively on the company’s expertise in precision metal-forming technologies.
It said, “We focused on the idea of using a three-dimensional compression moulding process to produce a wood-based material thin enough and hard enough to be used to make the casings for electronic products.”
This is intended to enhance the aesthetic satisfaction that Olympus products provide.
[Via Photokina-Show.com]