Fusion 360 and 3D Printed Moulds

Process

Production

Inter

vention

The first step for me was to do very simple basic tests with the material I had available to me to get an idea of how the process works and to see how the material reacts to different conditions.

My first tests consisted of attempting to make simple corrugated patterns, and while the first tests were quite rough and unusable I thought it was successful enough to keep working with it.

At this point I was looking for ways in which to connect several strips of veneer together in order to allow me to create longer corrugated structures. The best way I found to do this was by folding and overlapping the two strips together as shown. This created a surprisingly strong connection and it could even have been an extra option to explore as it felt like there was potential for working with this technique alone. However I chose to continue with the corrugation as I saw more potential in it at the time.

In these examples I made smaller sample pieces to test different layer combinations to see which would be the strongest and which type of wood would be best suited for this kind of an application.

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This example was entirely made of maple and using single layers throughout. At this point I had started to make larger test pieces and I realised that maple wasn't suitable as the veneer I was working with was far too thin and the maple grain would begin tearing when bending, even after pre-soaking over night and steaming for several minutes.

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The example to the left consists of a simpler test like the one above where it is all single layers of only beech. The example to the right consists of a combination of Birch as the outer layer and Beech as the Inner layer. This combination ended up being the best combination of materials that I found. This was because I found that Beech was the type best suited for making the inner corrugated material while the Birch was thicker and less brittle than the Beech was.

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As I was working on the corrugation tests I began to test conventional steam bending alongside my veneer tests. The main purpose to this was to see if I could somehow combine the corrugated tests with more traditional steam bending. The results ended up being varied from Linden being the least effective to Ash working the best.

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Another small set of tests I made consisted of, again, trying to find a way to use conventional steam bending alongside the veneer tests. In these examples I tried to see if I could use the veneer as a form of joinery by laminating the veneer on cracks or joints in solid wood, or by strengthening a section by wrapping veneer around it. This ended up working somewhat but I felt that it wasn't as related to what I was working with and so I again decided to focus on my existing tests.

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As I worked on the veneer corrugation an interesting side effect ended up being the discoloration of the wood during the drying process. This was due to the clamping process using steel rods as part of the form and as the veneer was still wet from the steaming process the steel began to oxidize and the wood then absorbed some of this color.

From some searching I did I found that this technique can be used as a way of "ebonizing" wood, essentially a natural way to achieve a darker color to wood by using steel wool and a light acid such as vinegar to create a natural grayish stain.

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To the left is the first corrugation form I used and that subsequently led to this discolored form.
To the right is one of the final tests I made using the wood corrugation in which I made a test to see how large I could work with the material and how strong it would be if it was successful.

I quickly realised that this material and structure wouldn't work as it wasn't something that I would be able to create on my own.

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To the right is the final test I made in an attempt to test whether or not this material would actually be strong enough to create a structural object such as a chair or a stool.
It was at this point that I realised that I was attempting to push the material into a role for which it wasn't meant and I needed to take a step back and rethink how I was working with the material.As it simply wouldn't create a clean and repeatable enough result as it was at this point.

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After realising that I needed to rethink my approach for the way in which I was working with the material I decided to put aside my need to make the end product something strong and structurally sound and explore what other options I had available to me.
To the left are two of the examples of this idea in which I was still trying to stay with the idea of corrugated patterns but in these examples I was trying to use them as more of a aesthetic feature rather than as something which would be purely used for its strength.

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Although the example above had potential I wanted to explore other forms that I could use to achieve a similar effect.
This resulted in the example to the right which had the beginnings to an interesting result but I quickly realized as I was working on it that the corrugated shapes weren't repeatable enough in order to get a clean result.

However the main take-away for me was realizing that I could work on creating a simple repeatable unit from which I could then create more complex forms.

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After realizing that I could work with these repeatable shapes instead I decided to experiment with different shapes and forms to see how these different forms would interact with themselves and if they could then be used to build up larger forms.

To the left is the first of these examples which was getting closer to this repeatable pattern but it was too large and it wasn't suitable for constructing these "infinite" forms that I was looking for.

The example on the right is the second of these forms which I tested which is a simple wave pattern pulled out to achieve a kind of staircase effect. This worked somewhat as with the previous example but the main issue was the repeatability and again the fact that it wasn't suitable for building up these larger continuous forms.

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Since the previous two examples weren't suited for the kinds of forms that I had in mind I decided to try and simplify the process down even further in order to try and achieve the simplest form I could which would then allow me to repeat them as many times as I needed.
More importantly I made the models smaller so that I could instead focus on the pieces interaction with itself in order to test if I could in fact build up from these smaller building blocks.

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After testing several different shapes I eventually found the final form I chose to work with. This final form ended up being a slightly modified version of the ribbon pattern shown above which results in the figure eight pattern shown to the left.
This shape was unique in the sense that it has the ability to connect with itself in such a way that it allows for more complex shapes to be built up from it.

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Once I had found the final shape I knew that I could continue with I began making models of different shapes to see what I could create using only this single unit.
This first example is made of Beech and worked quite well, in this model all the pieces are connected in a "horizontal" fashion in which the pattern is built up with the longest side being horizontal.

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In this second example I decided to test out the same model as shown previously with another type of wood. In this example I used walnut which was also thicker than the Beech I used in the previous model.
The main difference ended up being that while Walnut bends almost as well as Beech the hardness and thickness of this kind of wood makes it more difficult to work with and as it begins to dry it also shrinks causing the model to deform slightly.

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After having tested the previous models I continued to work with the base building form I had created to see what other forms could be made with it.
The example to the is the second form that I created which consists of three main sections. The top and bottom section are identical ring like structures which consist of 14 pieces each. The middle section is the same as the top section, however it is inverted. This allows the top and bottom to be connected as the allows the natural curves of the sections to line up.

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As with the first models I created I also made this second model out of walnut in order to see how well another type of wood would work with this kind of an process and in order to see how a different color variation of this model would look.
The main challenge with this version, again ended up being the toughness of the walnut causing the model to deform slightly in the drying process. While it does work sufficiently enough to make the final model the end result isn't clean enough and would require more work to be finished.

Narrowing the individual pieces also had the added benefit of allowing me to continue working with the walnut as it lessened the shrinking effect and made it nearly as workable as the Beech versions.

The final form is shown below in which I see three distinct variations, the example to the left is the main two components made of beech. These two forms are the next "base units" that could then be repeated and alternated in order to build larger structures. This is partly shown in the examples to the right which are the narrower versions of of the earlier models, which consist of three sections that could be extended further by adding further sections.

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After the discussions we had in classes I decided that the final object would consist of some variation of this form I had created and I continued working to refine the final form as much as I could with the time we still had available.

One of the main aspects that I wanted to improve was the overall look of the form by making it look more refined. I feel I was able to achieve this by narrowing the width of each of the individual pieces that the forms are made of. This resulted in the forms looking lighter and not as cluttered as the wider variations.