Create two objects that are the same, each of different size and material.
As I was looking to keep creating some kind of appliance to my home and my gadgets in the irregular spectrum, I thought on creating something for the two devices that, unfortunately, I use the most. My computer and my phone. One base stand for each.
The overall idea was to get some more irregular patters. I felt inspired by the pattern we get when adding a shape within a shape within a shape, varying in size. I felt that was an important part of the design for the base. Also, the curved design in the front, vs the square design of the square shapes.
I am impressed on how much I really underestimated kerf on this project. I wanted to rely solely in the tension between the joints I was creating. I learned how to use a Kerf Test, which was a really nice idea that my professors Phil and Ian taught me. After a large amount of trial, error and sanding I could get my pieces attached as best as possible. I faced a couple of problems with the laser cutter, it was not cutting all the way through to the material. However, I took that as an opportunity to leave all the scars on the material as part of the design.
This piece was made of a plywood sheet and I used the laser cutting technique.
After finishing the computer stand, I started tackling the second one. I wanted to do something similar by using acrylic. For the phone stand, I used acrylic material. I thought for a second it could be harder to deal with, however, I found that the laser cutter appears to be more precise with it. I got tons of amazing support from Fabri and Ian on figuring out the laser cutter for the two pieces.
For this stand, I knew from the start that I wanted to bend the acrylic using the bender we have at the shop. So I calculated approximately where I wanted the bending to happen. Nassif really helped me on getting this process done; and I got some more moral support as well.
The first thing was to also do a kerf test, that also was hard to achieve. Although I thought that I had it mastered from the wood, the acrylic material worked a tiny bit different. In this case it was a little bit harder to sand and to understand how much tension was okay without snapping the material. In the end I also had to use a special glue that melts the acrylic and blend two pieces together seamlessly. Once I figured that out, with Ian’s wonderful assistance, I proceeded to bend the acrylic piece by using the horizontal bender. First I tested it out with a piece of scrap material I got after laser cutting. By leaving the material ”cooking” on top of the bender machine, it would get to the melting point necessary for me to effortlessly bend it.
