Ling-Li Tseng — week07

Week8- Composite

Composite materials (also called composition materials or shortened to composites) are materials made from two or more constituent materials with significantly different physical or chemical properties, that when combined, produce a material with characteristics different from the individual components. The individual components remain separate and distinct within the finished structure. The new material may be preferred for many reasons: common examples include materials which are stronger, lighter or less expensive when compared to traditional materials. (wikipedia)

Technology: CNC milling / composite
Material: Japanese Art Paper / LED
Function: Lamp
Year: 2014

This week I want to make an illuminate seed which could become a wall lamp in my room. I started the shape sketch in photoshop, and then create curves in Rhino to loft the surfaces I need. Then bring the stl file to shopbot to mill the mold. I used ¼” cutting tool to mill the blue form board.

For people who use ShopBot PartWorks3D, it is helpful to select the” fit to material” function. It would save you almost half of default milling time.

To create the diagonally milling pattern, I shift the fine cutting angle to 45 degree.

After finishing the mold milling, those materials below have to be prepared for composite processes.

• Fibers ( or any possible material )
• Gloved
• Epoxy
• Stretch Film
• Cotton
• Bleeder
• Breather
• Vacuum bag
• Mold Release
• Vacuum pump
• Cutting tool

The default fabric is lack of opacity, so that I used 4 layers of Japanese art paper to make the composite surface.
(You can buy them from Blick art supply )
Step1. Cut the material bigger than the mold
Step2. Mix the Epoxy (read the data sheet first)
Step3. Spread the Epoxy on the layers of the materials
Step4. Locate them with the diagram below, and then suck whole thing with vacuum machine.

After waiting 4 hours curing, I got thin semi-transparent surfaces.

Ling-Li Tseng 2014

Making is play.First we imagine, then we create.

Week8- Composite

This week I want to make an illuminate seed which could become a wall lamp in my room. I started the shape sketch in photoshop, and then create curves in Rhino to loft the surfaces I need. Then bring the stl file to shopbot to mill the mold. I used ¼” cutting tool to mill the blue form board.

For people who use ShopBot PartWorks3D, it is helpful to select the” fit to material” function. It would save you almost half of default milling time.

To create the diagonally milling pattern, I shift the fine cutting angle to 45 degree.

After waiting 4 hours curing, I got thin semi-transparent surfaces.

I joined two surfaces together to complete the seed shape, and added LED lights inside.