Beck's AUArts Blog

My processes for this week mainly focused on making the actual objects. I ended up cutting both the plywood and the canvas on the Trotec laser cutter.  With the canvas, I was only cutting the outline so it gave me a good idea of the scale before I committed to laser cutting the wood. For the plain tie, I used 5mm solid wood alder and for the engraved tie, I used 2.5mm birch plywood. Due to the size of the tie, I had to break it up into multiple pieces to fit onto one sheet of wood for both versions. Since I was engraving with two "shades," I also cut & engraved a little coin that was the logo on the knot of the tie as a quick test piece These are my results for the laser cuts/engravings: Next week is my one-on-one with Bryan to check in with this project. I will also have to assemble the pieces together, so I'll need to figure out what sort of glue to use to hold the wood and canvas together. Another thing I am thinking about is longevity, so my next step is to apply ...

So far, I have worked on designing the general shape for the laser cuts and a potential design for engraving. I want to start off with a test piece made up of only cuts lines before I proceed with the laser engraving. I considered retrying the living hinge for this project, but I feel as though a tie will be too narrow of a design to truly utilize it. (Additionally, I would have to find a piece of wood that is long enough which may be an issue if I buy square sheets of wood.) By cutting them into segments, it means I can rearrange them to whatever fits best to whatever size wood sheets I'll use. (This is particularly important because the sheets sold for the laser cutter are only available up to 12 inches long.) I figured that a good length would be between 18-20 inches in total, including the "knot". (This measurement is based roughly on the distance between my shirt collar and my belt line.) For the segments, I spaced them out 1 inch apart. In terms of material, I am co...

For project two, I want to expand on my current project, but I think that I should finish it up closer to the end of term.  I dramatically redesigned the edges to contain straight edges so that they are easily stackable and portable, like an Ikea shelf would be. In terms of naming it as a product, I would advertise it along the lines of "geometric dragon bookshelf" because I want to keep the name relatively literal. I ended up making a lot of progress on redesigning the bookshelf to be cut exclusively on the CNC machine. I was pretty torn over designing the curved shelves, so I approached it with the intent of using only straight boards with diagonal cuts. Until then, I'd like to work on a project that is relatively small scale but will still take up the rest of my semester.  When considering mass-production, the first thoughts that come to mind is something that can appeal to an audience. So for this project, instead of making an object designed for myself, I want to cre...

I tried making a lattice hinge on the CNC machine. I've found three main issues with doing this. The first is that it was very time consuming for the process. The two tests I've done so far have taken about 30-45 minutes each, which is something I hope can be resolved by using the large scale CNC machine. The second issue was my designing process. I looked at images of similar lattice cuts without really understanding how the spacing should work. I knew that I would be cutting with an 1/8 drill bit, so I tried to space out my pieces according to that but I ended up putting the cuts too far apart for the wood to actually bend.   The last issue I found was that it was too small of a piece to really put towards the test. I did find that there was a little bit of bend but not nearly enough that I was looking for.  For this upcoming class, my plan is to use the laser cutter to do a few more tests, in hopes that the machine will be a lot faster to use. I'm trying to mimic the c...

Most of the work I did this week was setting up the CNC machine. Quite a few of the settings required quite a bit of tinkering. Results: I found that one of the kerfs broke upon bending. I also found that the bend was not that gradual, and this may be an issue of size (being such a small model/test piece) Moving forward, something I want to try is switching to bending using a straight lattice hinge (sometimes also referred to as a "living hinge"): I did briefly look at other types of lattice patterns, but I found that since I am only trying to bend in one direction, this may prove to be the most sturdy for what I am doing. Typically, these are done using a laser cutter and I am thinking that with how my progress is currently going, I may want to switch to doing this project entirely with the laser cutter instead of going larger scale. It was a bit of an ambitious project in the first place, but I have also noticed that most of the items I wanted a place to store in the first ...

For cutting out the shapes, my plan is to use the laser cutter and for the kerfs, I will use the small 8" x 8" cnc machine in the thing tank.