The Aluminum Skin

It's a challenging work to make a shape with the original sheet, it always needed to have a few experimental attempts towards the final product.

The first thing to start with is to cut the original sheet to the size of the model. The left side of the picture above is the first attempt that I did for the skin. The sheet is too big for the size of the model. And it will take extra time because there are some unnecessary parts of the sheet but I still need to hit on to make the whole shape right.

 

This is my second attempt. I've learnt that it's important to know where you are going to hit on the sheet, so always draw a line on the aluminum sheet that traces the curve on the model. And also find an appropriate and handy tool which is suitable to make the shape to work with.

Russell suggested me to cut the whole sheet that I work on into half which would be better and easier in order to make a skin that could fit on the model.

 

The red scissor is for right-handed people. I've then cut the sheet into two and made a bottom sheet. I decided to work with the top one on the right hand side photo above.

Tip: Wear gloves. The edges of the sheet would be rough after cutting that would easily hurt your hands.

 

Always place the sheet on model to see how far I went to make the skin.

Tip: Always bring a UHU with you. The stack slices model will always break into two when you try to squash it into the aluminum skin to see how it fits.

  

This is a useful tool that supervisor recommend as a base to hit on. Place the curved face into the hollow part of the base which would make a nice curve. 

The next step after created a curved skin is to hit the two narrow ends downward but remain the middle part arching. In this process, it needs to hit the sheet bit by bit horizontally from the middle to the ends with the use of the duck-bill shape hammer above.

 

Supervisor welded the model for me as the intention to get an even skin, then the result turned to the other way as it's over welded. The aluminum sheet became hard and the the shape was fixed. Then a new skin needed to be done.

 

Finally, the aluminum skin is done with repeating the steps above. It's fitted with the model by following all its curved lines and narrow ends.

Making the structure for the Aluminum skin

 

After the laser cut machine finishes its work, it's important to use the masking tape to tape all the parts on the original board, otherwise the small parts will fall off once it has been cut out.





 It's the right way to stick the bigger number piece on the top of it's previous one. And some of the pieces would have the bottom shape of the following piece drew on, so just glue the following piece to the line on the previous one.

This is my finished structure for the aluminum skin.

Digital Modelling

The first step for the modelling is to create a 123D Catch model. It's quite convenient to download the 123D Catch app on iPhone. 

My first attempt is modelling the flower. There were some holes on the model, and the leaf is adhesive to the base.

 

Then I imported the 123D model into the Meshmixer.

After experimented by Auto Repair and manually filling the holes, it was a failure to fill all the holes on the flower.

Therefore, I've changed from the flower to the bud.

It came out with a successful model captured on the 123D Catch, no holes, no attachments.

 

Next, I've imported it into Meshmixer again, to remove the background and the base shot with the lily bud. And then select the bottom of the stem and fill it. Finally, save the file into stl format, so it could be imported into the 123D Make to make the structure for the aluminum skin.

The following step is to import the stl file into 123D Make. 

 Adjust the unit from inch to mm, then consider the actual size into the real model. My lily bud structure is 184mm H * 203mm W * 129mm L.  

The construction technique that I chose is Stacked Slices. Which would allow the details of the bud to appeal on the model. And I chose the 2mm thick board to cut out the model.

Then save the cutting plan into dxf format and import it into illustrator to change the colour of the numbers into blue and the colour of the outer lines into red which tells the laser cut machine to cut.

My OBJECT

My chosen object is lily. The reason for choosing lily is because that as designing an interior space, the smell of the space is also an essential element in order to create an ambience. And lily is my favourite flower. So I thought I can go for it.