The Art of Bill Lasher

Bill Lasher’s wheelchairs are stunning works of art.

Bill Lasher Jr. makes beautiful custom wheelchairs for his company Lasher Sport (www.lashersport.com) out of a warehouse in Anchorage, Alaska. A United Spinal member, and longtime Alaska resident, Lasher became paralyzed during a skiing accident when he was in high school. Here he talks about how he came to make these unusual creations, and what his vision is as he makes them.

The first time I pondered creating a chair, I was in my first year as an engineering student at Arizona State University where I first learned about composite structures. I experimented with fiberglass, carbon, and Kevlar laminates.

It wasn’t until about four years ago while watching Jesse James’ television shows, American Chopper, and other shows of that nature that finally led to my decision to dive into creating my first chair. Up to that point I had many ideas, but taking the step from idea to actually acting on it came because of the inspiration of those shows. The mountain bike industry played a major role in the materials I used and some of the look of the chairs.

Not knowing a thing about fabrication, I searched the Web for machinery that I thought I would need for constructing the chair I was imagining. I began accumulating all the machinery in my garage, with a tube bender bolted in the center of my garage floor. (It made for a long, cold winter of parking outside). I am completely self-trained on how to use all the machinery and tools. I welded the first chair myself-again, self- trained as a welder. I did know how to use Computer- Aided Design (CAD) software, so it wasn’t difficult to design the parts that I needed to have machined for the prototype chair, though it was very expensive. My family thought I was nuts because my garage was full of all sorts of machinery that really didn’t apply to anything that I was currently doing in my life . . . and I kept it a secret from everyone except my son.

All material and machinery were American made. I try to keep everything American made, or at least to the extent that I can control that. From my end, all my raw materials, machined parts, and so forth, are made in America.

I chose aluminum as the initial material because it is widely available, I liked its strength characteristics, and it is used a lot in the bike industry. I like the look of the oversized tubes. I chose magnesium for our super ultralight chairs because of its great strength-toweight characteristics, and because it’s the lightest structural metal that exists. It was sort of a no-brainer, but it wasn’t easy to come by. Magnesium is my favorite material to work with. It has so many cool properties. It still blows my mind just how light it is compared to all other metals, yet it’s so tough. It doesn’t seem possible, yet it is!

How much custom work a customer wants depends on their involvement in the design and fabrication process. If it’s a pretty standard chair, I’ll speak with them on the phone several times, go over dimensions, work on color and finish options (there are literally thousands of options). Sometimes they’ll send me a drawing or photo of what they want. Sometimes a photo of a tattoo that they want embroidered or cut from metal, or a design they’ve worked on. It can get pretty complex. The end result is a satisfied customer who loves their chair.