Intro to Fab - Two Materials
I absolutely did not know what to make for this assignment. The main reason was that I did not know where to get small quantities of materials that were not acrylic or plywood. The other reason was I did not know how to work with those materials using ITP shop tools. For example, the bandsaw or laser cutter would not work with metal sheets, and I do not have sufficient knowledge (yet) to use the lathe on a block of wood. With these constraints, I took a trip to Michael’s and got my hands on a slice of balsa wood and two leather strips. I reasoned that leather would be relatively easy to work with just with hand tools such as knives and the exterior of the balsa wood seemed interesting to work with.
After examining my two materials for a long time, I decided to create a mountain-scape with the exterior of the balsa wood. I took the slab to the bandsaw and cut the edges. As balsa wood was so soft, cutting it felt like butter. I also tried to cut a piece of the leather with scissors and found out it didn’t work very well. I then resorted to the utility knife to cut the leather strips.
After placing the pieces around, I did not like how the mountain-scape was turning out to be. I thought back to my past project, the sandwich maker, and decided to make another sandwich. Using the bandsaw, I cut two 3’ by 3’ squares out of the remainder of the balsa wood. I then cut a 3’ by 3’ square out of the leather. After putting the pieces together, I drilled small holes with the hand drill. I then used wood screws to screw everything together.
However, I was not satisfied with my current sandwich and wanted to add more ingredients to it. I cut out another square of leather and glued it to the wood using felt and foam tacky glue. I did reference the this to that website and it recommeneded me a glue called barge. As I did not have said glue, I resorted to the one I had available to me at the moment. Surpisingly, it held and worked quite well. Lastly, I created a chocolate shaving by twisting and gluing a strip of leather with the tacky glue. This is how I created my tiramisu cake out of balsa wood and leather.
