WEEK 14

4 - 4

1. read the material safety data sheet (MSDS) and technical data sheet (TDS) for the resins that you're using 2. design and fabricate a 3D mold (~ft2) and produce a fiber composite part in it

I will design a pendant lamp made with fabrics that allow a diffused lighting in the environment. The reference idea I have is the Flos suspended light model Zeppelin.

I would like to work a lamp more horizontal, designed by folds. It would work with two light bulbs whose cables are united in the ceiling and thus give stability to the lamp.

2 - 2

I decided to work the design by folds. The main piece is a triangle which is connected to another by means of an L-shaped piece.

I used the press fit technique learned in week 3 to assemble my mold. I used 3mm thick mdf

I finally wrapped the entire object with transparent packing tape.

I finally wrapped the entire object with transparent packing tape. De este modo la resina no se pegara al molde y una vez seco sera muy facil retirar el molde.

1 - 6

We will need Vaseline to prevent the resin from sticking to the mold.

Gloves must be worn to work this assignment. Put vaseline on the whole object

Here I am measuring component B (fifth part)

You have to move the mixture to achieve something homogeneous, do not move too fast to avoid bubbles.

The homogeneous mixture is similar to this.

I used linen cloth and cut it in bands. The idea is to dip each piece of fabric into the resin.

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POX BAK 1206 RESIN material safety data sheet MSDS (click here)

POX BAK 1206 RESIN technical data sheet TDS (click here)

On drying the resin becomes very hard. To cut the edges of the jute use a knife (Mark Olfa) and a chisel to be able to separate the jute from the mold.

This part takes some time as the object has many folds and this makes it a little more complicated.

The chisel allowed to break the joints (which are small pieces) and thus remove the mold in parts.

This photo shows a large part of the removed mold. It was not very complicated because pieces were coming out together.

There are places where I had to push the excess resin, so when drying the object you see some brighter areas.

The entire process of removing the mold took about 3 hours.

Final view, I will hang my lamp from the ceiling.

7 - 10

DOWNLOAD FILES

After Eddy taught his dragon mask to Neil and he advised to do tests compressing as much as possible the material to remove the excess resin we decided to do three tests in a group way.

We wrapped with the transparent plastic the mdf pieces where we would place the samples.

We did three samples and used three techniques, in total 9 samples.

Sample 1: linen + linen Sample 2: linen + jute + linen Sample 3: linen + jute + linen + jute + linen

We begin to place the resin in the natural fibers following the same proportions of components that I explained previously.

Technique 1 consists of compacting natural fibers by hand as much as possible.

Technique two consists of placing the natural fibers between two layers of mdf and pressing them.

Technique 3 consisted in placing the natural fibers inside a mdf support made with press fit. These supports will fit inside a special plastic bag that is connected to a vacuum cleaner to remove all air and compress as much as possible the material.

This is the bag we used to remove the air with a vacuum cleaner.

First we tested with a toy car. The technique worked!

We put the tests inside the bag and we removed the air.

Test 1 : press with the hands. Left outside to dry.

Test 2 : press with presses. Left outside to dry.

Test 3 : press with the hands, remove air with vacuum cleaner. left outside to dry.

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VIDEO: TEST 1

The first test we did was to remove the resin with the hands tightening as strong as possible. We let the tests dry outside. It took two days to dry well and the result as seen in video 2 was: irregular texture, very compact and non-flexible material.

VIDEO: TEST 2

The second test was to compress the material between two mdf using presses. We let the samples dry outside and it took just under two days to dry well. The results as seen in video 2 were: very even texture, you can see the natural fiber and the material is tough but flexible. This was undoubtedly the best result.

VIDEO: TEST 3

For the third test we remove the resin with the hands tightening as much as possible. We place the samples inside mdf supports and place them inside a plastic bag that has a valve to extract the air with a vacuum cleaner. It took two days to dry well. The result as seen in video 2 was: Texture not very even, material more or less flexible and more or less compact.