Week 8
Assignment - Make something big
At the start of the week were asked to make something big using the ShotBot (which is a large scale CNC machine), I wanted to build a small table that was similar that we had in the Fab Lab which you could sit at the couch and pull the table over to you to work or eat.
I took some rough measurements of this desk but I wanted to make a custom one so that it fitted better under my couch at home and was at the correct heights and could also been thin enough to be pulled under my couch.
I measured up the couch at home and adjusted the design. In the second week when we were making press fit models I made a laptop stand for my Macbook. I wanted to build this into the desk and make it out of wood so it was stronger and more durable as the cardboard I had made was becoming weak and flimsy.
These are the illustrator files of how I wanted the table to look. I had set this file up for 2400x1200 12mm sheet of plywood. I used a website called Joinery Notebook to give me some good ideas on how to make some joints and hinges. I wanted to keep my design simple with 90 degree joints to hold in place where I would then place screws or glue to hold it together more firmly. I made sure that I had all my pieces nicely nested together to minimise waste of materials.
I then scaled the object by 16% so I could print it on 2mm matt card. This made it a 1/10 scale model and I printed this on the laser cutter. I printed it in physical form to see how it looked and made sure I had things at the right scale and to test the joints.
I am now going to do some test joints on the shot bot to test the tolerance that I need I am planning to use 12mm ply wood. I need objects to slip inside each other with 90 degree type joints. I found that 12.8mm worked the best for me.
I needed to import the file into part works and make sure that I dog boned all of the pieces where I wanted objects to sit flush. Once I happy with my tolerance I will print large scale and assembe my desk using glue and screws.
Once I used the ShotBot everything went according to plan and Wendy commented on how good my nesting was, where I used as much of the material as I could and had very little waste.
6mm mill bit for down cut, 6 mm for up cut, Speed Rate: 12000, Feed Rate: 25mm/sec, Plunge Rate: 20mm/sec
I put the table together at home and it worked perfectly!! Happy happy