Its a Kazam! machine. What’s a Kazam! you ask?

The Kazam! was the invention of Charles and Ray Eames — you know, the couple that designed, decorated and shaped the American home and life. Their contributions to architecture, furniture and design are profound and they developed the Kazam! to help create some of their iconic designs. 

The Kazam! was the Eames invention for molding plywood. The name derived from the saying “Ala Kazam!” because the process of forming plywood in the Kazam! mould would work like magic. Actually, the Kazam! was not very magical and never really worked all that well, but it did lead the Eames to develop new ways of manufacturing mass-produced plywood molds for leg splints which were used by the US Navy. With access to military technology, the Eames were finally able to create stable molded plywood products which they used to mass-produce those iconic Eames chairs.

Sources: (http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/eame/hd_eame.htm and http://designmuseum.org/design/charles-ray-eames). 
Here is a short film made by the Eames on assembling their lounge chair (sorry — without Kazam! technology)