14.COMPOSITES
May 5, 2016
This week's assignment is to design and to make a 3D mold (~ft2), and to produce a fiber composite part in it.
In this assignment, I decided to make a mask such as the Venetian mask.
14-1. Making molds & sheets for composites
[Tool]Software: Rhinoceros (MacOSX), Adobe Illustrator CS5
3DPrinting machine: Makerbot Replicator2
Laser cutting machine: trotec speedy100
[Material]
Molds: PLA, PVC sheet(W:450mm/H:450mm/D:0.5mm)
Composites: Felt (polyester 100%), Epoxy resin
[Proccess]
1.Making molds

I made a male mold with 3D printing machine. And I used vacuum forming for the production of a female mold.(Vacuum forming is a method of molding sheets of plastic into 3D shapes using the force created by an air vacuum.)

Rhinoceros Data > mask_160507.3dm

[Setting]
- Resolution: 0.3mm
- Infill: 20%
- Number of Shells: 2
- Support & Raft: off





2.Making sheets for composites

I used "Command:Squish" for a male mold data. (The Squish command flattens a non-developable (curved in two directions) 3-D mesh or NURBS surface into a flat 2-D pattern.) And I saved it as data of Adobe Illustrator.


Data > mask_160508.svg


[Setting]
- Power: 12%
- Speed: 2%
In addition, I made square parts(W:10mm/H:80mm) to join right and left of a mask together.
14-2. Creating the composite




(The epoxy resin I used is this. > Epoxy resin & A hardener.)








A bag was broke, and water leaked... I excluded a mask early to dry it.



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And, I tried making another one.
[Material]
- Mold: Styrofoam
- Sheets: Felt x2, Cotton cloth x1, Linen cloth x3
[Tool]
- Roland MDX-20
[Data]
- flyingdisk_160706.3dm
[Photo]
- [FabAcademy2016] Week14 Composites
Please refer to this photo page for how to make.



Felt x2 > Linen cloth x3 > Cotton cloth

