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.