Final Acrylic

For my final acrylic project I'm going to make a vase.  I'm going to use the heat from the vacuum form in order to melt the acrylic so that I can bend it into the shape that I want.  I'm either going to use a yellow foam or wooden structure to form the acrylic around.  Depending on how the clear acrylic looks I'll decide whether or not to put a painted finish on it. 

Fiberglass Final

Since my last post i have changed my process a little. I made that blue foam model to get the shape and form of my final. I have taken the measurements from that and have created another model. This model is framed out of mdf and covered with fleece to get an even uniform slope. I had seen this technique used many times in videos i have watched about fiberglass and now i understand why people do it. The fleece has stretching qualities that are ideal for this. This allows you to pull it over any shape/form staple it into place and stretch it to get any wrinkles out. So now that i have this form made i can move on to the next step, which is fiberglassing. I plan on putting a layer of epoxy down and letting that harden so i have a hard surface to glass over. Once the epoxy is hard i will start to lay the glass. I plan on doing 12 layers because this has to be strong and resist the vibrations of the speakers. Once the 12 layers are dry i will continue to the finishing process of sanding priming and painting. I am planning on a gloss finish. I dont know the exact color yet.

MONster Progress

Today was a big progress day for my final project. I began my morning by crafting the stakes that are oriented in the back of the tent. I measured and drilled holes so that they can be secured the tent poles as well as each other. Below are a few pictures of the pole and stake in action. I tested the stake's durability outside Hayward in both grass and sand landscapes. Following that, I sanded them down with varying grits to get a smooth surface which I them primed. I then wet sanded, sprayed them with two coats of aluminum Rustolium and left them to dry. In addition, I began to measure out the tent poles. I took inspiration form the form of the human hand to model the structure of my tent shelter. A visual below shows how I took string and places it along the bones in my hand to take measurements of where my joints. By scaling the measurements up to fit the size of my tent, I now have an accurate read on where, and at what angle, I need to heat bend the PVC poles. Next class I plan to lay down the template for the fabric cute out and begin more construction on the tent poles.