The Blister

THE PROCESS

Elliot created 32 unique tear drop shapes on grasshopper which were then put into the CNC machine and created MDF templates to sandwich a piece of aluminium to make a tear drop shape. I chose number 19. The templates had three small tabs connecting the teardrop shape to it which had to be removed.

I used a jigsaw the separate the tabs and then the bobbin sander to sand back the tab to a smooth finish.

I found some scrap wood in the bins and decided to sand the top of it down to a curved finish to use as a shaping tool.  

I firstly started making indentations in the metal around the perimeter using the curved wooden piece I sanded down and the mallet. Luckily Dan came by and told me not to continue with that method as it would create a bumpy/wrinkle effect.

I instead switched to using the mallet in the centre to create depth. I found it easier using two mallets, one to hit the other one. My teardrop shape was quite large and looked very similar to the mallet shape itself, which meant that it could fit into most of the spaces it needed to. 

I started to get a nice smooth shape using the nylon mallets and was able to smooth out most of the ripples I created at the beginning.

I used my wooden tool to define the edge and shape closer to the point.

This worked quite well but I needed to use the mallet again to create a smooth transition for the sharp edge to the curve. 

Defined edge using wooden tool

After smoothing with mallet

My curve was getting quite deep so I put a sandbag underneath to allow it to extend further.

Here are images of the finish product. I am very happy with how it turned out.

The Tray

THE PROCESS

First we paired into partners and picked a number each as a side measurement for our tray. I was paired with Nic, and we decided to make a 25cm square tray. We measured this and marked 25cm with a sharp point, used the guillotine to cut the aluminium and then marked 1cm from the edges to create the lip of the lid.

Then we used the circumferenbce of a 5lbs metal weight to give an even curve to each corner of the tray. We traced the edge of the weight with a sharp point and also gave it a 1cm lip.

Next I found two scrap pieces of wood to put on either side of the metal to use as a sandwich in which to create a 90 degree lip.

After starting with this sandwich method, my partner Nic and I decided to use the metal folding machine despite Russell advising against it. We thought it would give a neater finish and be time efficient too. 

We grouped together the right size inserts of the folding machine to create the size fold we needed. Making a square proved to save time as we could use the same inserts for all four sides.

After folding up all the straight edges up 1cm, we had to tackle the curved corners. We used the same 5lbs weights as we used to measure the radium, and clamped it down with a piece of wood behind to restrict the metal from moving backwards.

The use of a metal hammer did create small marks which probably wasn't optimal, however I think I produced quite a neat corner. 

I cut the corners down as they had been slightly stretched by the hammer, then filled the edges. The final results are as below:

The trays are the same size but did not fit together as well as we would have liked because Nic had been off sick and we weren't able to work on it together.