The Tray Process

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 on the aluminium as well so that it would match up on both sides. Then, we used a bit of standard glue to give it a bit of stick to help with keeping it centred when putting the work in the vice. The glue was good as well because it would never adhere the metal to the wood so it would be easy to get out too. 

So in retrospect, I had hammered the edges flat WAY too quickly and so I didn't leave much space for it to not fold in on itself. I went and asked Gabe for help but honestly, I don't think there was much he could do to save that disaster.

Here is Gabe trying to use the shrinker trying to help me figure out my mess. I appreciate the help, but it definitely did not work. At all... 

A T T E M P T   T W O   &  T H R E E  &   F O U R  &   F I V E:

So, because we had already used our given two pieces of wood templates, Tauqir and I had to go and make our own as well as guillotine another sheet of aluminium. We found a large one piece of scrap wood and we cut it up using the large band saw that had the adjustable guide to help keep your cuts straight. Whilst I would have loved to have taken a photo, I was preoccupied with either marking up templates (when Tauqir was doing the bandsaw cutting) or I was preoccupied with not getting my fingers cut off. 

I repeated the template and set up from the first attempts and honestly, I was getting into a routine of it already after a few attempts. 

I had issues the first couple of times around in regards to smashing along the tip of the metal piece (and creating a curve that dug into the template)- this time I decided to use a scrap template so that I could really hammer in from the bottom of the template outwards.


It went about THAT well. Because I wasn't looking properly at the piece, it ended up digging into the wood template.



I was getting further frustrated at the fact that every time I went back to pry the metal back, the pliers would leave these horrible scratch marks into the metal and would splinter the wood. I tried wrapping the pliers in masking tape but it would come off really quickly.


At some point I had one good corner in one of my attempt but something would always go wrong with the other edges and I just was so frustrated. I had been in the workshop on three separate days by now.

My partner, Tauqir and I were considering maybe considering mocking up a CAD model of a female and male mold and doing some form of altered metal pressing. The issue was that we had no idea when the CNC machines were going to be available and I believe, Tauqir is still interested in pursuing this idea after the assignment.

A T T E M P T   S I X:

You know what they say, sixth time lucky!

No but honestly, this time I had Daniel go through the process slowly (and with a lot of help too) with me. My biggest takeaway from the lesson was that I should have created multiple small folds, take the metal out of the mold and onto the steel dolly to smooth out the folds, and then put it back into the mold and repeat the process until I had a tray. 

So that was the initial few hits to get the general shape, then I took it off and put it on the dolly. 

I put it back into the wooden template and went off again going from the base outwards so that the metal wouldn't dig into the template. 

F I N I S H I N G   U P:

I WAS FINALLY FREAKING DONE!

Unfortunately, the wooden piece was stuck inside the tray that I had made so I decided to set it on fire ask Gabe. He helped me drill multiple holes into the wooden piece and chisel it out.

Then I used the tin snips to trim the corners which had been stretched out and finally sanded it down into the final product.



This is my tray against my partner's: