Hammer Time

The hammer is ready for paint.

Hedden Yellow Foam project

so im not really good at this process shots thing. I didnt have my camera in the shop today and i got a lot of work done on my model so here is what it looks like now tha ti am done for the day...

Yellow Foam Project Eliot Coven Post 2

Over break and on Monday I continued to work on my yellow foam project. I had already finished the handle and button so I began to work on the top part. I started by epoxying two pieces of yellow foam together so I could get my piece the right thickness. I then laid out the shape. The rest of the day was devoted to hand shaping the piece. This took a lot of filing and sanding. I ended the job by drilling a large hole, 2 inch diameter, for where the light would go and then smaller wholes around it. The smaller holes were purely aesthetic. Then I simply epoxied all the pieces together. I will Spackle the piece in class on Wednesday.

Carolyn's Yellow Foam Flashlight

In class on Wednesday I drew up the design of my flashlight after doing some research. On Thursday I made my flashlight form on the lathe. After the form was done I put on spot putty on it and sanded it while it was still on the lathe. Keeping my model on the lathe through the whole process made sandy it smooth very easy. After taking my model off the lathe, I cut the ends off where the spindles were and then spot puttied and sanded them. Next I plan on making the lens and button.

Eliot Coven Yellow Foam Class 1

Today in class I did some quick research on flashlight designs. I decided I wanted to make a light that was somewhat unconventional and went against the rounded form of most designs. This was mainly because I knew the lathe would be very busy considering the majority of the class seemed to be designing symetrrical rounded lights. I chose a design that is like a light gun. It has a handle with a trigger and a button that four of your fingers fit easily into and the light is at an angle from the handle. I made the handle and started the trigger today. Next class I will have finished the rest of the flash light and will be in the process of spot puddying.

Mike Hummel's flashlight progress

Today I did some work on the lathe after finishing my design. It's a simple shape but will feel great to hold. Next work session I will be doing a bit more sanding and some spot potty work. Two pictures below.

Eliot, Steph, and Mike Super Nintendo

Today we finished most of the buttons. The bulk of the day went towards building a crazy looking hot wire jig that would cut a 30 degree angle for the back of our controller. At the end of class we tried our jig. It worked wonderfully and only gave us minor errors that were easily fillable with Spackle. Next work session we will do the bulk of the filling and sanding. We also need to give most of the piece a soft radius edge. And then we must epoxy all of our buttons down.

NINTENDO CONTROL

our progess during the weekend was that we finished glueing all the buttons down using apoxy we had to use 4 clamps for each of the top buttons since they are at an ange and bent it was harder to keep them in place while they dryed. Also we finished the sanding and spackling so that the controler could be ready for the primer.

We almost finished with the form of the harmonica. There's a little more sanding to do before starting the spackel.

Blue Foam Wiimote Progress

We have had 2 class sessions thus far to work on our model. Our group decided to pursue a Wii Remote for this project. Today in class we almost completed the final form of the remote body and all of the buttons are ready to be attached to the body once its completed.

Eliot Coven's Group: Blue Foam Day Two Post

Today in class we finished up the final details to our Adobe Illustrator file and then plotted our Super Nintendo remote. Our piece is roughly 4 ft x 2 ft x 8 ". We bought 4 sheets of 2" blue foam and super 77ed them together, putting epoxy in as well. My team mates then glued our print out on top of the foam while I began laying and cutting out the buttons. We ended the class by cutting the gigantic piece on the ban saw. Next class we will continue to make progress and try and finish most of the body of our object. If we can do this than the following classes can be devoted to spackling and finishing the piece.

Blue Foam Class One Post

In the first class we chose our object. We considered doing the mouse for a computer but came to a decision that a super nintendo remote would be much cooler. The next step was to get as many pictures of the controller as possible and luckily Mike had a super nintendo in his room that we could measure and scale. We decided to lay the top view out on Adobe Illustrator. This took the majority of the class. In the next class we will plot our illustrator file and begin carving foam.

Vacuum Form Final Model

Here is my final model for the vacuum forming project. All the parts were done in 40 mm styrene. If I would have done something differently it would have been to use thinner gauge styrene for the connection lip, only because the radii were a little too tight for 40 mm.

Vacuum Form Progress

Here is what I was able to accomplish in class. I had to form one side of the mold twice because I got a bad pull on the first try. I am using two different mold heights which may cause some issues, but hopefully not.

Final Styrene Model

Here is my finished styrene model. At first I didnt account for any of the gauges of the styrene when measuring the pieces so I went through a few trial pieces before getting it right. Also, I forgot to add in some supports in different places to give it some structure so there were some tricky spots I had to slide some shims in. I'm not a huge fan of this material, mainly because its kind of a one shot deal when joining parts together.

Styrene Model Progress

This is my styrene model in progress. The thicker styrene is harder to get a clean cut, while the thinner gauges seem to turn out better when less weld-on is used.

Final CAT Cardboard Model Photos

Here is my final CAT Skid Steer Loader. The part which I found most challenging was rabbiting just enough space to get the cardboard flush.

Mike Hummel's vacuum formed coin bank

After using 40 mil to vacuum form both halves I then attached them with using a small 40 mil strip. After they were attached I used spackle to fill in any cracks along the seam line. Unfortunately the spackle dried in an off white color when the styrene is bright white. I am now deciding if I should just spray paint the whole thing white or leave it how it is. Here are two pictures below.

finished model

the second try i decided to use a 20 mil for the inside strip so that my forms would not deform and they would fit better together and it worked i still had some gaps to fill with the spakle but it fit much better than the first one

after glueing the 2 pieces together i noticed that it fit in a weird way because the inside flap that i attached deformed one of my halves so i tried fixing the gaps with spakle but i wasn't satisfied with the result so i decided to try again and re do the whole thing 

Final Vaccuform

This is my finished vaccuform project. I found the paste to be very useful, but for the larger gaps I had to leave several hours for it to dry before I could start sanding. I used 40 mil styrene for the inside tape, which distorted the shape somewhat, but I was able to correct it by holding the peice together so that it set properly. Next time I would definitely use a thinner gauge styrene for the tape though.

Vacuum Form Porject

I have finished my vacuum form project. To complete the project I first cut out an abstract shape out of MDF. The only guidelines I used for making my shape was to make it have a flat bottom so that it could stand up. After I cut out the shape on the ban saw on Monday I sanded it smooth. Then I routered the edges. In class on Wednesday I split the two pieces of MDF apart and vacuum formed both pieces at the same time of out 40 mil. styrene. I then cut the shapes out with a xacto knife and used weld on and a strip of 20 mil styrene to stick the two pieces of styrene together. I then used spackling to fill the gabs and finally sanded the model smooth.

Vaccuform Progress

I first carefully sketched out a shape with various curves and angles on the double block of MDF, and cut the perimeter out on the small band saw, using relief cuts for the one tight curve. Then I filed and sanded the edges smooth with 80 grit, and chose a simple rounded edge bit for the router. The router wasn't able to completely get into the one interior angle, so I filed it slightly by hand. Then it was ready to be vaccuformed, which went pretty smoothly I think.

The styrene was trimmed from the mold and released, and I will be sanding, assembling, and finishing it today.

finished (kind of) vacuum form.

I'm all but done with the sanding on this project, but I have to run, so here it is glued up.

Canteen progress, final

I finished the canteen in class on wednesay. I was able to line up the two pieces very straight by sanding the connecting surfaces against a flat surface of sandpaper.