Final Model Making

So as I said in the last post, I needed to finish my final prototype model for yesterday (29th June).
Needless to say it has been a stressful week and Friday was a crazy rush to get things organised and wrapped in bubble wrap to protect them for the drive down. 
The stress was worth it, as the model is now finished! :D


Here are a few of the photos showing some of the processes that I went though in the final stages of model making (I said a few, but it might be quite picture heavy)!

 In the spray booth

 Orange parts sprayed and final touches of filler on the body

 The table part sprayed and nearly finished

 I decided I had to make a base that would hold a parasol, I also made it so I could fill it with sand!

 Dwayne from the apprentice was in the workshop developing some products so thought I would take the opportunity to get a photo

 The body sprayed and sticking on the seal

 The base for the umbrella fully made, just needed spraying

 The base needed to be taped off so that the grey front could be sprayed without covering the white

 The grey part sprayed

 This shows the tape removed, with only a few minor parts to touch up

 I painted the inserts that I had 3D printed and stuck them on to the body

 All the inserts fully stuck

 I used a jig to drill holes into the wings and the top to secure them together

 All secured

 The fully assembled table top

 I then cut out the silicone sheet for the non slip mat

 This is the final model fully arranged and on the pole!

The umbrella up, and all the model fully put together!

I will take a final photograph when the model is up at the show to get the full effect, but overall I am happy with the end result!

And comments would be great, and once again, thanks for reading!

Workshop Time!

Hello!

This post has been postponed for about a month while I was finishing the work for my final submission on my final project! More important than blogging im sure you will agree.

So, I just thought I would show some of my work that I have been doing in the workshop to create a visual model for my degree show! :)

Enjoy! (Its fairly picture heavy so hopefully it will load ok!)

 A photo of my work on the CNC machine - a machine that I learnt to use during my time in the workshop. This meant I could use it myself instead of asking the technician all the time :) 

After the some of the parts were finished on the CNC machine I had to stick them together and use filler to fill any gaps. These were then sanded down.

 The table part of my model, the photo shows the filler drying and waiting to be sanded back.

The base part of my model had to be created out of layers of MDF, 22mm in this case. These layers were then stuck together to give the desired height.

This photo shows the parts being bridged by filler, as it was very difficult to get them to match by hand!

Me! Ready to get sanding (some more - hence the hood hair!). A very messy job indeed!

This was painful to do as I didn't want to make a mistake! Luckily I had some help from a friend.

And once it had been sanded again, and the gaps filled, I separated the layer that had been double sided so that I could vac form it, giving me the wall thickness, instead of a lump of MDF!

My first Vac Formed part! it went rather well, but that was the easy part, the processing after this was a huge pain, but had to be done.

All of the parts Vac Formed for the base section and taped together, not too bad a job if I do say so myself.

And, the base section stuck together and the gaps filled.

Mosre sanding, most of my time in the workshop was spent sanding! 

Unfortunately, I had run out of time to work on my model for the hand in, so I will be picking up the model making this week coming and will hopefully have some progress to show. 

In the mean time I will post some of my other work to keep you interested!

Thanks for looking!

Matt

Some FMP Progress

I wanted to share one of the most recent bits of work of my final major project. 
You may or my not know, but I am designing a security box for use at the beach, which would be secured to parasols that are already in the location.
This meant I had to design a way that the security box could fit round various sizes of parasol pole, whilst also providing a smooth sliding action up and down the pole.


After a few days designing and a few conversation with others I decided on a way to solve both solutions with a single part. 
I designed a retractable bearing system which will take pole sizes from 22mm up to 33mm.


Now that may be fairly boring to read about, but I will now get to the interesting part! Yey! :)
Due to the parts being so small I had to make a decision on how to make the bearings using the facilities available to me.


As the parts were so small I was given the go ahead to use the 3D printer that the university has! Joy! I think I am the first person to use it in at least four years (all the time I've been at uni)!


So here are some pictures I took to document the process. :)


Enjoy!

It springs to life! The glow makes it feel even more 'Sci-fi' than it already is!

Straight off the printer! The plastic covered is support material, which has a smell reminiscent of marzipan.

Cleaning the support material off with specialist tools.

With all the support material removed and a light sanding :)

The spring allows the bearing housing to retract and expand, accommodating different sizes of poles.

The two retractable bearings finished! Ready to be sprayed and combined with the final model (when its made)!

p.s. I like exclamation marks, incase you couldn't tell.