Jan '06 - Mar '06
In my Furniture Design class, we are building models of our chair designs. My first efforts were quite crude and I'm frustrated with my inability to recreate my ideas and drawings in an effective 3D form. The Sculpey we used at the beginning of class to form our compositions is too soft and limp to hold a chair shape. Paper has no dimensionality and doesn't hold a curve anyway. Foamcore is too thick and awkward for the small scale of our models. Strips of wood in the correct scale are too stiff to be bent to create curves. Although I did find a material that is better than most, Architectural Taskboard (it cuts like a dream, glues together easily with white glue, can be sanded, and can be bent in one dimension over steam), it doesn't really have the flexibility to create complex or tight curves.
So, I'm casting around for things to use to create these little models. What would work to create a complex curve in a tiny seat? What can I use for the legs that would look like bent metal tubing? How can I create a clear panel with a pattern of holes in it? How about a metal edging on a thin panel?
Any ideas?
8 Comments
Have you tried brass rod as a replacement for scale steel tubing? What about something old fashioned like paper mache' for the seat? You could sculpt the curve from scuplty and cure it. Cover the sculpty mould with vasaline (as a mould release) and then mache' the top of the curve with paper and glue. With enough layers of paper, and enough priming and sanding, I imagine the seat could look great!
if it's small enough you may try paper clips for the bent steel legs. sounds dumb, but i've seen it look pretty decent.
how about cork sheets?
i have used it to make molds for blowing glass and find it quite flexible, and it comes in lots of thicknesses. not exactly structural, mind.
wups, reread your post. forget my sugestion. must be time for my nap...;-)
When there is an opportunity furniture objects like a chair should be modeled full scale because even the slightest variation of dimensions
make a difference, IMHO.
What about Vac-forming? Or for the legs, plastic tubes you can bend with heat?
What is Vac-forming? What kind of plastic tubes?
Vac-forming is really cool. You have to have some specific equiptment, which your school might have. Basically, you heat up a thin sheet of plastic until it is pliable, then you place the plastic over the object you wish to copy. The vacu-forming machine sucks out the air out from around the object, shrinking the heated plastic to the object. The plastic sheeting cools, and you are left with the shape of the orginial peice. If your school doesn't have a vacu-form table (its really just a big heating element, a table, and a vacuum), I have a toy from the 60's that is a mini-vacu-form table from Mattel. I bet you could get one on eBay.
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