For my waffle project, I decided to do a piece that
reflected the Fall season and could be used as a table centerpiece. I
ultimately chose to do an empty cornucopia that could support an arrangement of
fruit. This led me to aligning it vertically with an oak leaf shaped base for
support. It would be made from cast acrylic for strength and aesthetics. I
considered colors, but settled on clear so that the fruit would become the
focal point and people seated at the table could see through it.
Creating this as a waffle structure proved to be a
nightmare. My initial model below had only the tip of the cornucopia joined with
the leaf shaped base. The model was oriented so that the centermost ribs would
provide the needed structural support in a cantilevered arrangement. Alas,
after many hours of trying various layer arrangements, I determined that the
rib cutting script could not process it without cutting off or removing
entirely needed layers.
I then altered the model, positioning the cornucopia so that
there was a continuous vertical structure in the center of the model. Even so,
I had to try at least a dozen different layer placements and orientations
before the rib cutting script ran successfully. Even so, the orientation was
not what I wanted and I was forced to omit some ribs. Here is the result.
Unrolling and laying out the contours for laser cutting was
relatively straight forward. I managed to fit them all on a 24 by 48 inch sheet
of 0.08” acrylic.
In retrospect, I learned that the rib cutting script is ill
suited to models without solid central structures. I may, as time permits,
manually slot my original design.
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