Reflection
As an industrial design student, my discipline often requires me to mock up models of things to present to a client to accompany a concept. These mock- ups are usually done in card, or foam or anything else that is easy to manipulate into shape quickly. As such, using metal is not often a medium for the models that we make. With the technological advancements that we have made in the past couple of years as well, this discipline often turns to rapid prototyping through laser cutting and 3D printing. Metal forming is often a lost skill.
As a jewellery student, however, I have worked with shaping and bending metal before, albeit on a much smaller scale. For example, these are a series of rings I was making a few weeks ago.
Because the tray took me six damn attempts to make, and I've kept 4 copies of it, in this reflection, I'll take a look at the challenges, difficulties and issues with this part of the assignment 1 and how the skills I've gathered throughout the semester can be applied to my discipline in future.
T H E D A M N T R A Y
Part of the reason that this tray took me so many attempts was because I wasn't there for the class that day and so a lot of my attempts were done through secondhand lessons and a lot of it was misinformation.
In my first attempt, I had flattened out the edges too soon, which led to a huge bubble at the corner. To fix this, I attempted to pull it back out with pliers and use the shrinker in the corner first to make it easier for myself. I quickly realised that this was no way to go about it as it essentially renders the template useless because the shrinker is quite a fickle machine. Once I stepped down on the shrinker pedal, the material would curve inwards and I could not put the piece of metal back onto the template to continue.
In my second attempt, I tried to go slower and do a more gradual hits so that it would have a few ripples which I could smooth out.
However, my mistake in this attempt was taking too much advantage of the template, which meant that the aluminium was starting to dig into the template and I didn't see it as I was hammering in. This should have been a no-brainer as aluminium is clearly stronger than soft plywood, especially when hammering into the grain. I soon realised that I wasn't using a steel dolly.
In my next few attempts, I got more frustrated with myself and when I was hammering the metal, I was trying to do it quickly, which meant that I was hitting the top edge of the metal sheet, not the base of the metal sheet, where the template was.
When I realised that the aluminium was starting to dig into the wood template, I would use a pair of pliers to pull the metal back out. This was a dumb idea. Even though I was technically shrinking the metal into itself, when I was pulling the aluminium back out from the template, I was essentially stretching it as the metal is still quite soft in the sections I was pulling.
The big mistake I was making throughout these early attempts was that I wasn't making use of the steel dollies that were available. I relied too much on just the template and the hand tools. So, in my 3rd, 4th and 5th attempts, even though I started out correctly by creating even hits throughout, I should have taken it out of the template and switched up and use the steel dollies to prevent the dig into the wooden template and using the pliers only for small curves.
A P P L I C A T I O N: I N D U S T R I A L D E S I G N & J E W E L L E R Y
Through this subject, my biggest takeaway was a better understanding of metal properties, especially in terms of sheet metal. As an industrial designer, this hands-on knowledge of the way metal works when trying to shift its shape is helpful when designing things to understand limitations and seeing if maybe it might be better to use a different manufacturing method e.g. casting metal instead of metal stamping it. For example, in the case of the bowl, whilst it is a great exercise in understanding shrinking and stretching of metal, it probably would have been better if done through a different method like metal spinning to create that shape in an industry setting.
The various ways tools and templates had different effects on the metal is also something which could be helpful for me as a jeweller. One of the emphases in jewellery is obviously for the piece to have the perfect finish, which means that the various tools used throughout the process is important as different marks can be left and if it took me five hours to sand a tiny pendant to perfection, imagine how long it would take to sand a giant piece of aluminium with shrinker marks all over it?? no thanks honey. Which means selecting the right method to go about creating the shape you want and the tools you use is very important (aka, avoid using the shrinker unless you want some ugly piece of thing)
The nylon mallet was the only tool that I hadn't previously used in some form or way. It's a nice, soft way to manipulate the metal but one of the things that I found could happen to it was that it could sometimes get really scratched and I had to sand down one of them a few times for the tray exercise because they kept gettting frayed and got "fluffy", which sometimes left marks in my work in random places. It didnt matter too much overall, as other tools made even worse marks but I think if I got the chance in future to be able to manipulate metal, I want to experiment with the difference in a nylon mallet vs a raw hide mallet which is still quite strong but has a softer surface area and won't scratch the metal.
I really wasn't going to take this course when I enrolled in it and I wanted to focus on my final year. I'm glad that I gave it a chance because I actually learnt a lot and actually had fun doing it. I am not going to miss my hands being covered in aluminium tarnish that makes you smell like the tinman for the next millenia but it was a really great experience overall.
As a jewellery student, however, I have worked with shaping and bending metal before, albeit on a much smaller scale. For example, these are a series of rings I was making a few weeks ago.
Because the tray took me six damn attempts to make, and I've kept 4 copies of it, in this reflection, I'll take a look at the challenges, difficulties and issues with this part of the assignment 1 and how the skills I've gathered throughout the semester can be applied to my discipline in future.
T H E D A M N T R A Y
 |
| one, two, skip a few and six tries later... |
In my first attempt, I had flattened out the edges too soon, which led to a huge bubble at the corner. To fix this, I attempted to pull it back out with pliers and use the shrinker in the corner first to make it easier for myself. I quickly realised that this was no way to go about it as it essentially renders the template useless because the shrinker is quite a fickle machine. Once I stepped down on the shrinker pedal, the material would curve inwards and I could not put the piece of metal back onto the template to continue.
In my second attempt, I tried to go slower and do a more gradual hits so that it would have a few ripples which I could smooth out.
 |
| more even ripples spread out |
However, my mistake in this attempt was taking too much advantage of the template, which meant that the aluminium was starting to dig into the template and I didn't see it as I was hammering in. This should have been a no-brainer as aluminium is clearly stronger than soft plywood, especially when hammering into the grain. I soon realised that I wasn't using a steel dolly.
In my next few attempts, I got more frustrated with myself and when I was hammering the metal, I was trying to do it quickly, which meant that I was hitting the top edge of the metal sheet, not the base of the metal sheet, where the template was.
 |
| Sorry, my scanner is acting up |
The big mistake I was making throughout these early attempts was that I wasn't making use of the steel dollies that were available. I relied too much on just the template and the hand tools. So, in my 3rd, 4th and 5th attempts, even though I started out correctly by creating even hits throughout, I should have taken it out of the template and switched up and use the steel dollies to prevent the dig into the wooden template and using the pliers only for small curves.
 |
| There is some blue around the base, which is to indicate that the hammer should be hammering from the base of the template outwards. |
A P P L I C A T I O N: I N D U S T R I A L D E S I G N & J E W E L L E R Y
Through this subject, my biggest takeaway was a better understanding of metal properties, especially in terms of sheet metal. As an industrial designer, this hands-on knowledge of the way metal works when trying to shift its shape is helpful when designing things to understand limitations and seeing if maybe it might be better to use a different manufacturing method e.g. casting metal instead of metal stamping it. For example, in the case of the bowl, whilst it is a great exercise in understanding shrinking and stretching of metal, it probably would have been better if done through a different method like metal spinning to create that shape in an industry setting.
The various ways tools and templates had different effects on the metal is also something which could be helpful for me as a jeweller. One of the emphases in jewellery is obviously for the piece to have the perfect finish, which means that the various tools used throughout the process is important as different marks can be left and if it took me five hours to sand a tiny pendant to perfection, imagine how long it would take to sand a giant piece of aluminium with shrinker marks all over it?? no thanks honey. Which means selecting the right method to go about creating the shape you want and the tools you use is very important (aka, avoid using the shrinker unless you want some ugly piece of thing)
The nylon mallet was the only tool that I hadn't previously used in some form or way. It's a nice, soft way to manipulate the metal but one of the things that I found could happen to it was that it could sometimes get really scratched and I had to sand down one of them a few times for the tray exercise because they kept gettting frayed and got "fluffy", which sometimes left marks in my work in random places. It didnt matter too much overall, as other tools made even worse marks but I think if I got the chance in future to be able to manipulate metal, I want to experiment with the difference in a nylon mallet vs a raw hide mallet which is still quite strong but has a softer surface area and won't scratch the metal.
 |
| Lornia out. |
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