Thursday, April 24, 2008

Da Vinci Accordion Project

Industrial Design Fundamentals Assignment:
1. Design a wooden toy inspired by Leonardo Da Vinci.
2. Make a model of your toy.

Visual Reference Board:
Bellow Prototypes:
I found this site useful in coming up with my method for building the bellows.
Here are my first bellow prototypes. For these ones I used an x-acto to cut out the trapezoids from poster board and masking tape and fishing line to connect them together.I switch to a thicker chipboard for the final set of bellows:


Cutting fabric to cover the bellows:
Glueing the fabric on the bellows was the longest part of the process and was the most frustrating and sticky. I used a whole bottle of Elmer's glue so it ended up being really strong.

Here is a video showing the bellow action. I was kind of disappointed because the bellows ended up stretching less and less with each layer of fabric.


One bellow finished:
Chipboard mockup of body:
Two bellows done:
I cut a bunch of plywood to the profile of my keyboard and glued them together to make a mold:
Then I laminated 3 pieces of thin veneer together and stuck them in the the vacuum bag on top of my mold. I will use this to cut out my keys.
The wood for my keyboard didn't quite take the full contour of the mold so I had to adjusted the end piece of the keyboard casing to match the new key profile.
Here I've put together the keyboard and bass button casings and I have the bellows and unfinished keyboard resting in place. The edges of the casing are burnt because I cut out the wood on the laser cutter. On the keyboard I've masked off where I need to cut the wholes for the black keys. I've also got my unfinished sound ports resting on top.
I sanded off the burned edges and gave the casings a rich bombay mahogany stain. I finished it off with two coats of high gloss polyurithane.The white keys stay their natural color and only need 2 coats of high gloss polyurithane finish.
I modeled the sound ports out of a non-hardening wax-based modeling clay called plastaline. Then I spray painted them gold.
This photo depicts a cross section of the keyboard action. I used fabric for the hinge and red foam to spring the depressed keys back. The dark keys are stationary for this model.









Thursday, April 3, 2008

Final Skateboard

Manufacturing Processes Class Assignment:
1. Make a skateboard using techniques learned in class.
Show All Skateboard Making PostsLaser engraving the face veneer:


Using the vacuum bag to glue the face veneer to the deck:
Finished deck with gold leaf and a satin polyurethane finish:




The rest of the classes skate boards: