In the beginning it was not clear to me what the assignment was and what was expected. Once I go with the flow it became clearer to me. Making the inflatables was a fun experiment to start with. One of the most important things I learned is how to work with the laser cutter. I also know how to work now without using presets. I've learned how to solve a problem whenever i encounter one, for example deciding where to start cutting. Now I think more consciously about the material I use and what settings to use with each material on the laser cutter.
It was really fun to experiment with different shapes and structures and to think how I can make it better and worse. I deliberately thought to be more economical with the material by thinking about the following things: the amount of space because I shared the material with someone else, where am I going to cut it out and making rings for bookbinding from the leftovers.
I was happy with the final result of the sample book I've made but less happy that I had to leave him at the Makerslab.
In this assignment i'm going to experiment with inflatables. For the assignment of the week my contrast is "smooth - sharp" and i allready wanted to try that out with inflatables to see how to get from something smooth to something sharp.
Things that I used are:
Latex
Baking paper
A straw
Iron and ironing board
How does it work?
I cut a piece of latex and then I put a cut out form of baking paper on it with a strip that comes off the latex. The strip is important because later on you stick the straw in it so you van inflate it. After i put the baking paper on the latex i fold it and put a sheet of baking paper on top to iron over it. The latex will stick together except for the part where the baking paper is located. That is the part that wil inflate.
In my first experiment, I wanted a "sharp" point to pop up during inflation. First i cut a circle out of baking paper and i turn it into a cone. In addition i cut out some strips.
Now I'm going to cut a piece of latex.
This is what i have so far, a piece of latex, some strips and a circle that i turned into a cone. I also cut out a second circle in case i mess up.
Now I am going to put everything in place on an ironing board to iron. I crushed the cone because I assume it will rise again during the inflation.
Now i'm folding the latex over the baking paper. This is a little hard to do because the baking paper will move out of its place.
And next I put a sheet of baking paper over it and I start ironing. Sam told me to do this on the lowest temperature of the iron.
Because of the ironing, the latex is fused together except for the piece where the baking paper was.
I stick a straw in the part where the strip was and through the straw i can inflate my design to see if it will point up.
When I blown air into it, I discovered that I had not ironed properly and air came out of the side. Instead of a cone coming up, a sphere formed in the middle when I blew it up.
This experiment failed so i take my loss and try something else.
For my next experiment i will try it with triangle shapes so the sides wil look shawp while inflating it.
I've cut triangles out the baking paper and used my extra strip from the previous experiment. I cut another piece of latex, put my baking paper in it and a sheet of paper on top of it and I start ironing again.
After ironing, I discovered that in the process of laying the baking paper over it my strip was lost. Because of this all sides were melted together so I could not blow up my design.
foto mislukte poging
Now i want to be sure not to mess this up again so I made a new shape from baking paper where the strip is no longer loose but stuck to the shape.Afterwards i also cut a new piece of latex.
Now i fold it again and try to get the pointy side as close as much to the border where its folded. Then i put the sheet of baking paper on top of it again an start ironing it.
The result after ironing.
Now i stick the straw in it and try to inflate it. As you can see in the photo below, it partly blows up. I will have to iron again to make sure that everything is fused together.
But first i cut out the unnecessary space and try to be as close as possible to the pointy side and iron it once again.
Now that I blow it up, you can see it has a sharp shape. I can finally say that this was successful.
I've learned that even the easiest looking experiments could go wrong and that you sometimes have to be very precise and be careful. It took me three times to get something i wanted. In retrospect thinking about my first experiment it was logical that you cannot inflate a wrinkled piece of baking paper to make it come up and the latex is too firm to make it stick up.
In this assignment I worked with two words that contrast each other. With a certain material I've worked from 2D to 3D.
Smooth - Sharp
Material I've worked with is Polypropylene (PP), as thick as 0.8mm.
My first impression of the material was that it has a smooth surface. It is very flexible. What i want to experiment with is to sharpen the surface so it stings while touching it. I want to experiment with different different patterns and shapes.
I was inspired by the pattern that Bas Overvelde, from the origami workshop in the first week, used in some of his projects. I've looked up how it's called and discovered that the pattern i want to use is a Miura Pattern.
In Illustrator I've created such pattern and i did it in 2 colors.
Illustrator file: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dU35dSD4EOhIyYz7VjinPo9eRQN1veBJ/view?usp=sharing
I used black and red in this case. I used two colors because when i go laser cutting later, red will be engraved and black will be cut.
Before saving the the file it is important to save it as an .ai file and to make sure it is an Illustrator 8 file. Otherwise the laser cutting software, LaserWorks, is not able the open the file.
Now the design is finished i can begin with the laser cutting part. First import the file in LaserWorks.
I put my polypropylene sheet on the bed of the laser cutter and see if there is a preset that I can use for this material in LaserWorks.
After i asked a supervisor in the Makerslab what preset he would advise. He advised me to try it with the Polyester preset and try to change the speed and power. Afterwards i discovered that it was unnecessary to do and i could fill it in directly instead of working from a preset.
For the red lines i want to engraved i used these settings.
For the black line that i want to be cut i used these settings.
Now i upload it to the laser cutting machine by pressing "download" and a few times on "Ok".
Setting the laser cutter.
Press File. fig 1.
Choose the file you uploaded and press Enter. fig 2.
Depending on where the laser head is, you might want to adjust it and set it in the right place. This is useful if you want to save space on your material. Press the arrows to put the starting point on the right place and press Origin. The head is now put on place and if you want to see where it will cut, press Frame. If it is not on the right place then repeat this step. fig 3.
Place the placeholder next to the laser cutter under the laser to adjust the height. The height is adjustable by the two brown/golden screws shown in fig 4. You may close the hood now.
If it is all set, press the Auxillery button on the side of the laser cutter so the extractor and cooler are turned on. fig 5.
Press Start. fig 6.
Now the laser cutter is going to cut and engrave my design.
For the next one i have to give it more power because it didn't cut through the polypropylene. Now i have to cut through it with a knife.
To make it sharp i'm cutting through some lines from the Miura pattern so when I fold it now, there are some spikes where you can puncture yourself.
By cutting the wrong lines my design fell apart. I'll try this again later.
To start from smooth i've cut a piece without any pattern on it with the laser cutter. And because my file was still in opened in LaserWorks i've changed something in the settings. I've set the power to 50 from the black line so it will cut through and the output from de red line to no. I did this because i only want a blank sheet and now it will only cut out the black line.
This was the result after laser cutting, also had to cut again with a knife through it because the laser cutter didn't got through.
Now i want to make a sample where everything is only folded, except for the laser cutting part. I will use the same Miura pattern and by folding creating a sharp shaped pattern that will feel smooth wile touching.
Because the laser didn't got through in the previous one i will increase the power from the red and black lines in de laser cutting software. The red power of the red line will be now at 40, it will not cut through it but it will fold more easily. For the black line, that has to be cut out, i increased the power 50 and decrease the speed to 60 instead of 90. In this way the laser wil do the cutting (black lines) slower so i'm sure it gets through.
After the laser cutter was done i discovered something interesting. It does not matter how hard the power or how slow the speed will be because it cuts through but due the heat it will melt back together. With these settings cutting out was more easily to do because you can use less force and you don't plunk out with your knife.
After cutting the sheet out i had to flip it over and had to cut thin lines from the pattern, which are enrgaved, on the backside from the sheet. It is important to not cut through it. These lines must be cut so that it can be folded on both sides.
After cutting i start with folding. This is hard to do because of the robustness of the material so i dit it carefully and patiently.
When the folding part is done you'll be able to squeeze it together and the pattern will comes up in a 3D effect.
While touching it it will not sting yet.
To make it actually sharp i will try to cut through some lines again with a knife. But first i want two more pieces cutted and engraved with the laser cutter. The settings will stay the same for now because i'm ok with the fact that i still have to cut through with a knife because it will melt back together.
After laser cutting, once again i'm cutting thin lines on the back that intersect with the patter so it can fold both sides.
And now after cutting the thin lines, i will cut through some lines an do it right this time. The effect that I want to create is by squeezing it together the pattern goes up and sharp points stick out from the cut lines. If done right it will look like this.
And the piece with more lines cutted so spikes are coming out on both sides when squeezed together.
These are the samples i have this far from smooth to sharp in different gradations.
Now i want to experiment with other patterns to go from smooth tho sharp. So first i tried with triangles. I've made a triangle pattern in Illustrator so i can fold it upwards that it wil sting while touching it. Before laser cutting I import the file in LaserWorks.
Illustrator file: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1PLH2F-IKc3Vy58srfMmv5S5OSAOobs33/view?usp=sharing
I've used the same settings for the laser cutting as before. After laser cutting was done I've cut it out again with a knife.
When folding each triangle up i noticed that it didn't stayed up, so i have to change the design a bit. But by bending the sheet i found this interesting.
Now I've added a line under each triangle so the laser cutter will engrave the line and the triangles will stay up.
Illustrator file: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1PTl2wTfWyLJyT5fyXR4R7Ae8tsLHNAgm/view?usp=sharing
Now after folding it stayed up. For more gradations I've been thinking how to make it more and less sharp. By making it less sharp, I've made it rounded in Illustrator. Afterwards I imported the file in LaserWorks. With the same settings as before i let the laser cutter do its work and cutted the lines dat i needed to cut.
Illustrator file: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1MOsB7rOjfaaRcoPX6oGLC3Q6ugdv6iF4/view?usp=sharing
Now I went to see how it would really feel sharp and how to sting yourself with it. I immediately thought of thorns and made such a pattern. I imported it in LaserWorks and began cutting with the same settings as before.
Illustrator file: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_CWGSQ78pgZlZGBPzMKvdQGwV_7kpkc7/view?usp=sharing
Afterwards i folded everything up and it felt really sharp. Result:
The second serie from smooth to sharp:
For the sample book i want to use the same material. With the leftover polypropylene I had I've made rings in Illustrator to bind. Afterwards I imported these rings to LaserWorks. I copied them and made them smaller and bigger just in case. With the same settings for laser cutting i let the laser cutter do its work.
Illustrator file: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1tsB7JGh8RTPhfIyjhOZfJhpwiJjrNn0C/view?usp=sharing
Now comes the binding part. The front and back cover will be the pieces that i messed up. I kept these because it is a shame to throw them away.
I have printed the pages with explanations about each piece and perforated them together with the samples.
After everything is perforated i put the rings i cutted out through the holes so the sample book is in one piece.
The final result:
Link to the PDF of the samplebook: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1tsB7JGh8RTPhfIyjhOZfJhpwiJjrNn0C/view?usp=sharing
