For this assignment I will design and make a set of tables for a (my) living room. It will be a system of four tables that can connect with each other to create o bigger unique surface or work independently depending on the time and the particular needs.

Axonometric view of the tables together

Axonometric view of four independent tables

 

To fabricate the furniture I will first draw the edges of the boards and the legs and, in a separate layer, the pockets where the legs will fit in the boards. After this I import the geometry in Part Works and generate the traces for the Shopbot to mill:

Once I have the traces I send the job to the Shopbot (N51). The material used is MDF board with a thickness of 0.52 inches. Press the image to see the video of the milling:

The main problem I found after the milling process had ended is that the pockets were transformed into holes due to the irregularity of the board. The board was not perfectly plane (in was slightly undulating) and this made the z coordinate irregular so the Shopbot made a complete hole on multiple pockets. I had to solve this manually by filling the gap and sanding the surface to regularize it.

The manual process after the cutout was finished was much slower. I had to sand the edges and saw manually the leg joints in order to enter properly in the pockets. I then glued the legs to the boards and filled the gaps in the holes that were generated because of the imperfection of the board.

view of the tables together

view of four independent tables

The main table is actually big (as the assignment suggested) and it did not fit in the car... and one of the legs broke while trying to get the table into the car!

Now I have to fix that leg and paint the tables... probably lacquer it in white.

Even when it broke because of its 'bigness' it looks so small in relation to a big building (green building)...

or even in relation to a big sculpture (Calder's Big Sail)...it is the paradox of relative size... I guess bigness cannot be defined so precisely!

Ignacio Peydro Duclos. October, 2012

:)