Week 4: Cutting Supersurfaces
27 februari t/m 4 maart
In this week, we’ll work on exploring material properties and experimenting with these properties. Material properties can change depending on the state of the material and each of these states offers different venues for experiments. For the making assignment, we’ll focus on turning 2D into 3D with the use of the laser cutter. You will create a sample book which displays manners in which a flat sheet can be transformed into a 3D surface by cutting cleverly and exploring this within one set of assigned contrasting material properties such as soft-hard, organic-geometric, flexible-rigid, transparent-opaque etc.
Core concepts: material engagement, material behaviour, affordances, material dialogues
Create your own sample book in which you address the following aspects:
· Explore what the assigned contrast in material properties entails (this can be in the form of mindmaps, collages, moodboards etc.)
· Explore what the available flat sheets materials offer and what material(s) would suit your assignment best (share your results with each other). You can also bring your own material(s).
· Show iterations on the process, work towards a range of experiments that explores the two extremes of your contrast and various stages in between. Document your process and use a template to document the material properties, machine and settings used.
· Bundle your experiments in a sample book which displays your material exploration. Your sample book contains your interpretation of the assigned contrast, your experiments with various materials and techniques (at least 2 iterations with several gradations), and your final range of gradually moving from one extreme of the contrast towards the other end of the contrast (at least 5 gradations).
· Your sample book displays experimenting with the laser cutter. Use the laser cutter at least for one iteration with several gradations.
· Bookbinding is part of the process of creating your sample book.
4.1 What is tough or fragile?
Moodboard
I made a mood board based on tough and fragile. In the mood board I made a distinction between tough and fragile material and shape. Fragile materials are often thin-walled and consist of many strings and lines. Fragile objects often have a lighter color palette, or even transparent and shimmering. Rough consists of thick materials and solid shapes. Rough objects often look darker, or completely black.
4.2 How does a lasercut machine work?
Types of materials The lasercutter can cut many types of differnt materials such as: Wood, plexiglass, plastics (PP), cardboard, leather, vilt, rubber, silicone.
The lasercutter can NOT cut materials such as: fur, PVC, chlorine materials, metal, stone, glass.
What tough and fragile materials can i use in the lasercut machine ? Tough: wood (multiplex), PP or other plastics Inbetween: cloth, cardboard, leather Fragile: paper
Types of cuts The lasercutter can make four different kinds of cuts: normal cutting (cuts through and through), kiss cutting (cuts partially through the material), engraving (cuts the surface of the object) and dotted/clashed line (cuts in dots or lines).
Speed and power There's many options on the lasercutter. Most importantly are the the speed and the power. The lasercut machine has a variaty of known settings for materials but if your material is not in the database then you have to manualy set your settings.
Order of cutting You can divide your cutting lines in the lasercut program. This way you can make different types of cuts for different lines. Caution: You must always cut the inner lines of your design first, if the outer cuts are made first you can have your design shift in the machine and your inner lines will be out of place.
Files to use The program in which the lasercut machine works can only read illustrator08 files.
4.3 Testing for fragile and tough shapes
Test 01 In test 01, I looked at how patterns and cutouts can make a material more fragile. I made ten different cutouts for this. I looked at whether a material can be made fragile by cutting lines and blocks and whether it makes a difference if the lines / blocks are closer together or further apart. And lastly I tested if it makes a difference whether there are many cutouts or not.
The material used for the test is folding carton. The material set for this on the laser cutter is paper 300 grams. Everything is cut at a speed of 100mm per second.
Results of the test • The thicker the lines inbetween the cuts the stronger it gets. • Round cuts provide more support than straight cuts. • The more cuts there are the more fragile it becomes • The bigger the cuts are the more fragile it becomes • The more material there is does not always mean the stronger it gets.
4.4 Making tough and fragile shapes.
Going forth with the center pattern of test cutouts 6-10 from the photo above I made fragile and tough patterns. I made five different variants of the pattern, with the most tough and most fragile variants of the pattern I could make. I made two versions of all the variants, one made from plastic (PP, 0,5mm) and one from the same material used in the test. The plastic versions are more tough than the paper ones.
Lasercut setting
Material | parameters | Speed | Min/max power |
PP | 60 mm/s | 50% | |
Cardboard | paper 300 gram | 100 mm/s |
Most tough The most tough this pattern can be is to have no pattern at all, or to have it be very small.
Second most tough The second most tough pattern has the pattern in a bigger scale with cuts that are far apart.
In-between tough and fragile In-between tough an fragile is a medium big pattern with cut outs.
Second most fragile The second to most fragile pattern have many small cuts close to each other.
Most fragile The most fragile variant of the pattern has many small cut outs close to each other.
4.5 Making a dodecahedron
To illustrate the toughness and fragileness of the patterns i made them into a dodecahedron. All the patterns can be used to make the dodecahedron, for the example beneath it's made from the second to most fragile pattern. The cutting settings are the same as above.
Making the patterns into a shape gives it more strength. It makes even the second to most fragile pattern tough. It can be bend in and hold form.
The model is now fixed with tape, this can be improved in a subsequent model with folding edges, or by making separate pieces of the 5 corners and securing them together with connecting pieces (such as the parts during the Studio Overvelde workshop).
4.6 Binding
To bind everything together I made a case that fits all the samples.
The material used for the case is PP 0,5mm - white. I cut out the case on the lasercut machine and used three different types of cuts: normal cuts, dotted lines and engraving. I cut the outer shape, made dotted lines on the parts that needed to bend and engraved the letters on the top.
Settings
Cut | Speed | min/max power | Dot interval | Dot length |
Engrave | 100 | 20 | ||
Dotted line | 60 | 50 | 1mm | 1mm |
Cut | 60 | 50 |
The case is folded on all the dotted lines and has joining pieces on the sides to make it fit together without the use of another material.
How can you make letters into lines in illustrator? The program for the lasecutter can only read lines so you need to convert letters into lines for them to be able to be cut. You can make letters into lines by pressing COMMAND + SHIFT + O in illustrator.
4.7 Zine
Produce a class zine on the RISO printer together, 2 people will be editors this week. Individual contributions in the form of zine spreads. Write a text of approx. 150 words and create your own image.
Reflect on your process and discuss how you engage in a dialogue with the material through experimenting. How do the materials and the techniques you apply shape your thinking about the design? What kind of tools do you use in various stages of your creative process and how do they each facilitate different engagements, how do they help establish new though.
We gebruiken donkerblauw papier (blueprint) met daarop witte inkt. Dit geeft het idee van een blueprint. Geen foto's maar technische tekeningen met lijnen. Wat jullie ook maken voor de wekelijkse opdracht bijvoorbeeld.
The illustration is supposed to resemble a living hinge pattern. Which clearly did not work out so well ..
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