A.K. Marder: Living Joints - Final Pattern

Resolve my idea of living joints.  Through research, experimentation and a ton of trial and error I have learned that depending on my pattern, my material will bend in a certain linear way depending on my design.  With this is mind, I was able to find a pattern that has no designated direction of bend, it can form to any direction.  

It is aesthetically pleasing on its own, lays flat but incredibly vulnerable to taking shape.  I look forward to manipulating the material and taking advantage of its malleable nature.

I am having trouble creating the settings to cut this material.  The lines are so close together and the piece is so small, that if I run the machine too hot it burns and if I run it too cool it doesn't piece all the way through.  I am experimenting with speeds to compensate.

Tried to experiment with enlarging the pattern without changing the thickness of the material.  Good learning experience, learned I need to keep the pattern as tight as possible if I want it to behave the way I want.

Amanda Marder: Week4 Living Joints Experiment

 

 Getting prepared for a sample of living joints to sample out on the laser cutter.

 Sometimes it's hard for me to imagine something in a 2D format so printing in cardboard allowed me to play with the material physically and get a feel for it.  For this pattern I needed to add an extra section in order for it to be four sides.  I also need to reduce the length of the joinery walls, they are double of the other panels creating an obtuse triangle.

  I made some adjustments to my files to make them function a little bit better.

  I added an extra panel and reduced joinery walls so now it forms a square versus a fat triangle. 

 For the stand, I had issues getting the stand to mount up correctly so I tried to rectify the issue by broadening the base.

I thought I was ready to try out wood.  Wrong.  We only had boards that were fairly warped, I thought I would rig it to "make it work".  Nope.

  The laser cutter ended up cutting at angles and making sections too small and mauling everything.

However my stand worked!  I still want to re-work the pattern though, some of the off cuts are a bit too thin for it to be functional.  Also the area where the object is supposed to sit in the stand, there is too much area so I'll reduce the pattern.