Evaluating & Making- part 4

continued from Part 3 ....

Well once I was back in College I started to try putting the pieces together
and seeing if the rods would fit. There was a slight problem of the rods not
fitting at all because the base moved sloghtly while hammering in the nails.
So I had to use the rounded file and remove the wood so that the clear rods
could atleast fit into the holes that I drilled.

These were the wood pieces I cut and than painted white. It was hard not to get
any dust onto them while they were drying, even thought the spray paint would dry quickly.

I had a problem with the tower because the front was a sharp point and the metal
would not bend all around the corner and give me that sharp edge. So I had to cut two
smaller metal strip for both the towers and join them together by making a cover that
joins the two pieces together.

I bent the metal cover on the metal bender than had to use a wood piece that was cut at
an angle to get the sharp corner. I used the soft hammer so that the polished would
not get any marks on.



I than scratched the metals edge where the glue would go on so as it needs a rough
surface for it to have a strong hold. I used Araldite to join the pieces together and than
palced a thing piece of wood inside the joint so it would join at the angle straight and
not anywhere else.

I than started to drill in the brackets into the base and attach the wood pieces I
sprayed white before. It was difficult because the space avaible between the base and
the bracket was very little. This meant that the screw would be in there bent or would
not drill in at all.

Without putting on the wood pieces...

 


I than put all the pieces together so I could sort the perspex roof out by cutting
a piece of paper and laying it out on the wood pieces I screwed on to see how much
of perspex I needed to cut. I than went onto cutting the perspex and bending it on
the line bender. I also cut the metal pieces that needed to go onto the front sides, which
I bent slightly from the front and than glued on with Araldite jsut liek I did with
the perspex


I cut out the mesh on the band saw than screwed that on from the back and front of
the base of the model. I made sure the wood pieces I cut from before for the
tower roof tops were holding the clear rods in place too.

The final Outcome



Overall I think it looks great even though it did cause me a lot of trouble but
still it was worth it!

Evaluating & Making- part 3

Well After I sorted the perspex out that would go behind the rods I thought
on moving onto the other vital points of my model.

I had to cut the metal for the tower yet which was a tough task, as the metal
band saw was stopping sometimes when cutting the piece of metal. That
left me with very sharp edges as well as not having a straight cut.

I overcome this problem of the sharp edges by filing off the rough edges of the
metaldown diagonally. I than polished the metal so I would not be any finger
marks on.

I masking taped the metal pieces so that I would not get finger marks on them
and polish them everytime I touch them. I moved onto the bottom of the base so that
I first can glue them on with wood glue and than nail them to make sure they stay
in place and won't move around.

Than I got only time at college to cut out wood peices that would go in the centre to hold
the perspex roof in the centre. I spray painted them on the Monday white while over the
weekend I was busy working on my sketchbook and making brackets at home.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

to be continued....

Evaluating & Making- part 2

Well let's talk about the making then...

I started off with my base of the model where I drew on the plan of where
the model would stand. I than used tracing paper palced it on top of the base
so I could get an accurate copy and use it when cutting the wood pieces that
would stick below and on top of the base.

I used two cut of pieces of wood that were the same thickness as the base and used
masking tape to temporarly to hold in place. I than returned to mark where the rods
would go on the base and drew 1 x 1cm square boxes on the inside of the towers.

It was actually difficult to keep the rods in the same place on both sides of the tower,

so I had to keep a ruler on the base and draw a line all away across towards the
other tower. This was difficult to do if the ruler was not kept straight or if one line
was already not straight and would draw on the next, as they all would be in the wrong
place, Also the masking tape was coming off easily so I had to use quiet a lot of it
so that when I took it to drill in the holes that it would not move out of place.


However before I went to drill anything I cut out another piece of wood and used the
tracing paper from before made a photocopy of it and than cut it up so I could stick
it onto the wood pieces that needed to be cut for the top part of the base where the
towers would be held in place.

I than went to cut off the access part of the wood where the perspex went behind
the rods. I went to drill the holes for the rods on the machine which was difficult when
the base was big and heavy. I tried to put as much of the weight of the wood on the
machine so it was easy to move around. Afterwards I tested it the rods would fit, so
I used the wood rod that was the same size as the clear rods that I was going to use.


I made a woood mould or more liek a stand so that I could place the flexy wood inside
and guide me when making the curve once the perspex was heated up. I placed the
perspex there in the machine for about 2-5 mins and tried to make sure that it would
not get any bubbles due to the heat.

. . . . . . . . . .