The Blister Process

-
If you wanted a plate specifically for your avocado, then stay tuned...

So I already had experience using a CNC machine from my job, so the theory of using a CNC to cut out was something I was familiar with.

P A R T   O N E:  S E T U P


(Ok so obviously I cut the metal to the appropriate size first using the guillotine but I neglected to photograph that)

I realised I probably could have used the hand drill for this instead of the press drill so that was a bit of overkill but it's fun and definitely more precise. 
Once I got everything screwed into place, this was my set up and it was time to get started hammering in my avocado blister

P A R T   T W O: H A M M E R I N G


Because my cnc cut part wasn't too skinny, I was able to directly hammer into the piece to start. I tried to go in between using both sides of the nylon mallet gently hammering it in so I wouldn't accidentally crack the blister as so many people seemed to have done. 

P A R T   T W O:   C O R K I N G  T O O L S 


Once I got the general shape going, I started going in around the edges to get that nice crisp edge. I also used a smaller wooden mallet as a die. Similarly, I used a CNCed cut out piece to really get into the upper corner of the blister tear shape. 

I moved my corking tool along and all over the piece as I was hammering it in. That way it would lessen the amount of random dents and would be smoother overall.



I took the metal piece out and took a good look at it, then got a sharpie and marked out- in my own weird little coding system- all the places that needed to be fixed (Nothing a little acetone couldn't remove)

P A R T   T H R E E:   F I N I S H I N G


TA-DA flip it over and you got a plate for your avocado like I said.  

But seriously, I polished the blister and left the sides as is. In my opinion, there was a combination of factors which made this the easiest section in the overall assignment for me. It was a combination of skills gathered from previous metal shaping techniques, it was securely fastened to the die that was going to form the shape, as well the fact that it was rather organic and there was no radius to adhere to. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

FUEL TANK: THE MAKING OF

-
Image
Go make a cuppa and get a stress ball because if you're anything like me, you will probably also stress yourself out reading this post. P A R T   O N E:  D I V I S I O N So we now have our fuel tank model, and we needed to divide it up into three sections of equal difficulty for the team. We went through a few iterations. They both had one section which seemed easier than the other two or was impossible to do, so we settled on one which seemed the most even. So essentially we divided it up in a way where the top was a blister and in theory, the two sides were bent metal. We began by marking around the height of the model to 16 cm so that we were able to get it into nice even sections. Stuck a pen in foam at the height of 16 to mark around the model.  After that we drew straws and I got to do section 3. P A R T   T W O:  P A T T E R N   M A K I N G If my year 8 textiles class was any indication of my pattern making ...
Read more

The Tray Process

-
Image
This is going to be the longest post I may ever write so strap your seat belts in and come on this wild ride that is my six attempts at making this tray. Full disclosure: I missed this class because I was sick, so I was half playing this by ear. Still, I have honestly never been felt so defeated by a 110 x 200 x 1mm sheet of aluminium. A huge thank you so much to the tutors especially to Daniel and Gabriel for helping me out so much with this. LIFESAVERS.  Seriously, just look at this mess. I threw out two in rage as well.  A T T E M P T   O N E: So this was the easy part. My partner Tauqir and I knew what we were doing in making the wooden mould as we both had substantial experience using the sanding tools.  We started off with trying the 40mm radius (because how hard can it be right? HAHA) So this was our set up. We marked the wooden templates down the centres vertically and horizontally and used the scribe to mark the centres o...
Read more