Bingyangs’ 1:100 and 1:50 Routed model and former.
Bingyangs’ simple but elegant design has been a good project for myself and him to work through in order to learn the capabilities of the router and the correct processes in order to gain the best results.
Initially Bingyang modeled the entire scheme and cut it from Model-board at 1:100 scale, for this we used a 3mm ball nose drill bit with a 1mm step over, this put the drill bit under too much pressure and it snapped. In hindsight the model didn’t warrant a drill bit that could achieve such high levels of detail and really a 6mm ball nose would have been suffice. Once the model was cut he sanded it smooth and used Car body filler to fill in any errors in the cutting and achieve the smoothest of finishes. He then finished it with a coat chrome spray paint, although maybe more sanding was required.
Moving on from this Marquette he decided to work to a 1:50 scale with the goal of making a sectional model of half of the scheme, in order to do this he wanted to make a former and then vacuum form over this in clear acrylic to replicate the facades glazing. To make this former we chose to use a less dense foam this time in order to speed up the finishing process, we also used a 12mm drill bit to speed up the cutting time but also improve the smoothness of the finish.
The model has dimensions of 400x100x100mm and took around an hour to cut.
Bingyang the mounted this model on timber to finish the former. The model pushed the very limits of our vacuum former and so far we have failed to achieve the desired finish, the reasons for its failings are;
- The size of the model made the acrylic stretch very thin when being pulled over the former and failed on several occasions.
- The foam has left a rough finish on the inside of the formed acrylic.
- The timber the model is mounted on is hollow, so when vacuum forming the machine tried to remove the air from that space and has resulted in popping the acrylic.
We will now cut the model again out of a denser material and mount it onto a solid block, this should eradicate the errors we have been facing.
Updates to follow.
