This week, I made a planter for some of the ferns we have in the LLK Lab. I designed the planter in SolidWorks and then sectioned it into 2-inch cross sections so that I could cut the blue foam for the sections on the ShopBot. I Gurilla-glued the pieces together, waited overnight, and then sanded the mold down to make the planter flush on the sides.

Cutting the Mold on the ShopBot

Once I prepared the mold, I cut out the burlap, plastic wrap, and Bleeder breather. It worked well to roll my mold over the burlap and cut out the shape that worked and then use that piece of burlap as a stencil to cut the other pieces. Next, I attached the plastic wrap to the mold.

The Plastic-Wrapped Mold

I then mixed the epoxy, applied it to the burlap sheets, and applied four layers of epoxy-covered burlap to the outside of the mold. After this, I attached another layer of plastic wrap and then a sheet of Bleeder breather.

Composite Layup Completed

I put the layup into a vaccum bag and used the ShopVac to remove the air from the bag

Vaccum-Bagging the Layup

After leaving the layup to dry overnight, I removed the layup from the bag and cut out the foam mold by using a large drill and screwdriver to break it out (sad, but nothing else worked).

Finally, here was the final product… in its new home :)

Composite Planter