Bits & Atoms

More images of the final piece can be found on the works page.

I’ve just been told that the resin can be sanded up to 1000 grit and then sprayed with a clear acrylic spray to bring back the glossy finish. I think I’ll make a few more of these resin slides and then try this out. I may also coat the original resin slide and then make another mold.

The resin slides are a bit too heavy and I’ve had multiple people who look at it drop them out of the side. I attached the acrylic with epoxy and it seems to be holding fine. 

Tried one more resin cast with this fabric I had left over from something. I made the mistake of letting that edge that’s sticking out dry like that so I had to come in with some cutters and rip it out more or less. Still cloudy and there was a large divet where I didn’t fill with enough resin so I sanded and messed up the finish more. Note to self: stop sanding resin!

I sanded this original resin sample and added another layer of the same epoxy to see if it would clear up. It did a little but I bushed it on so there was a weird texture.

Still getting that cloudiness on one side. The distance between each cut seems to be a problem as well making it look very opaque from the holed side. I like how the slots look from the back. The flowers in resin reminds me of an embroidered blanket

Noticing these small notches where the cnc didn’t quite cut cleanly. I think this is probably connected to the emergency stopping of the machine. There were little buildups of the wood shavings. One downside to the precision of the cnc is that I can’t really get in there to sand that down. It shouldn’t be a problem for the resin to fit past this though.

Laser cut 1/8 in acrylic for that cut out on one side of the box. I was considering making the circular opening a covering as well but I’m reconsidering that as it would be a pain to glue them and wouldn’t really add anything.

Here’s a picture while it’s in the mold. I tried oiling the mold before pouring the resin in to try to get rid of the scuffing. The color in this one is alcohol inks that I’ve spread around with a toothpick. Something in the resin seems to leach the dye from certain colors. I made another casting with flower petals and they got bleached out to a yellow color.

The first resin cast I did I used some sewing thread I had on hand. There’s a weird clouded edge where the resin touched the silicone and I’m thinking its because I sanded the original printed resin form before I made the mold so it picked up all those little imperfections. Also...bubbles. I’m working on it.

I just realized I never actually posted the pictures of the cnc routed form. Here is is right after the cut still connected to the supports. It took a lot longer than it could have if we’d done the holing cuts first. The walnut is super dense so the machine kept shutting down when the shavings piled too high in the slot crevices. I think it would make a nice end table If I pared dow the extra material a little.

While waiting for my mold to cure I’ve been finishing the walnut with this cutting board oil. It brings out the dark of the wood and I really love it. I’ve done 3 coats on this piece waiting 20 mins to soak in between.

Using Smooth-On Platinum Cure Silicon for the mold. I’m using this tupperware for my base and I’ve hot glued one side to the bottom. I’m a little worried that the round edge won’t be captured where I’ve hot glued it.

I 3d printed my slide forms for resin casting on the Form Labs printer in white resin. I sent the smaller one before I decided to scale up my model so I had to reprint. I’ll have to sand where the supports were connected and then I’ll make my mold.

Same youtube channel as the blooper reel, CNC NYC, trying to mill organic matter, a pumpkin. He seems to program the shape that he’s cutting out of for the CNC machine to read. I’ve been working with blocks of design foam so far so it never occurred to me that you could do this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJ7pAxUwu2o

I like the felting machine and wonder what other fibers techniques could be automated in this way. There is normally a lot of repetitive motion involved which machines are good at.