The mess I've been left with..

I was very excited about making the prototype, and it is really crazy to think it took me a week and half to have it - almost - done. It isn't the result I was looking for, but considering the limited time, I think I managed to show what I was trying to do. I believe that if my design cannot be made in glass, it could be made in reinforced plastics which would be heat treated. It is a shame I didn't manage to make a proper prototype that could be used, because I initially wanted to go back to one of the coffee houses that we interviewed for the group video to ask them to use it. 

Remoulded Prototype

I think the joins here look better, however I haven't figured out how to fit the inner sphere and tubing into the shape. I wish I had time to make the handle out of metal. 

Improving the moulds

Since joining the halves with a sheet of clear plastic in between didn't look nice, I thought maybe it would be better to vacuum form the shapes altogether. This means there wouldn't be as many joins.

Who knew that sanding off the end of the cone would be the most difficult bit of all the turning and moulding wood. I had wasted a lot of my time to try and curve the inside of the wood so it fits with the oval shape perfectly.

Mounted Prototype

I deconstructed the shapes of my design and glued them either side of a clear plastic sheet to give a better sense of volume. I know the glue gun doesn't look very clean - I tried Araldite, solvent welding, etc and none of them worked, this was the only solution so far.

Joining Plastics

  

Now that I have all the parts I need, I can finally see how things fit in together. I still have one big issue - how do I join them?! I tried attaching strips of paper onto the moulds as I did before with the circles, however it didn't work as well as I had hoped. 

Then the thought came to me that I could glue them on a sheet of clear plastics from both sides, that way it will create the illusion that it's joined!

Moulds sorted

Above is the mould that just came out from vacuum forming, the only problem with this is it's creasing the bottom of the cone. It is most likely because it's too tall, so I may have to cut this one vertically in half as well.

Below is my very last wooden mould for the prototype. I am looking forward to put them together once I get home.

 

Here is a quick video on the creation of my moulds for vacuum forming. I sped it up 400% so in reality, one of these did not take me 30 seconds to make.

Oval problem

My attempt to make a flat edged oval shape for the bottom of my piece was not successful. The structure needs to be more tapered for the mould to slide out. The marks on top of the wooden mould are from bashing it to come out of the plastic. 

So, my solution was to cut it in half vertically, work out how wide the horizontal measurement for my design is and then join them together to use as a mould. It worked out well, except for a little mark from the gap in between.

Experiments with the tubes

Above is a glass coil Ryman from GlassChem has given me to experiment with. It didn't work well because it was chipped. Therefore, I used plastic tubing that I bought on ebay a few days ago and made a video out of it. I tried out various thicknesses of the tubes, lengths and angles to find out what is most suitable one for my design. The movement of the liquid is really mesmerising, which made me want to create this "impossible" design even more. I have used a mixture of real coffee to achieve the colour, and strained it so it's a smooth consistency - just like in the siphon coffee method.

Visiting Glass Chem

GlassChem, Forrest Gate, London

Terry (from the glass company) called me up to tell me that my design is impossible to make, in his words "even God himself wouldn't be able to do this", so he invited me to their workshop in Forrest Gate to have a look at what they've done for previous students and discuss possible compromises for my outcome. 

Things that I need to change about my design 

• the inside coil needs to be attached to the outer glass otherwise it would be loose and possibly bend
• the coil cannot be planted on a circle - there wouldn't be enough stability and it could easily fall
• the circles within each other cannot be made, it is very difficult to control the heat 

Making the prototype

       


It started with a block of wood on tuesday - after turning it, a lot of sanding and a final polish, it is ready to be vacuum formed.


I then realised, the two pieces cannot be joined to each other, so after looking around on wednesday, I came across a hamster ball - which offered a solution for my problem - a screw joint.
Surprisingly, it took me almost a whole morning to figure out how to recreate that in my sphere. I ended up attaching a few layers of paper sheets on the bottom of the sphere to make some space for the other half to slide in. I know it doesn't look perfect, but it's a step forward.