Randall Villegas Week 12: Waffle Core Lamp

Concept: For my waffle lamp, I wanted to do something plant like in form. This posed as a problem as plants have leaves and it would be hard to represent that without exterior pieces. I settled on something akin to a small tree and came up with a design that would still use the tools requested, but would give me the form I was looking for.

Modeling: I first created the base object by creating some curves and revolving them around the origin. I then cut out my slice to my desired amount. I then created some custom leaf curves that I set on the radial contours to give the desired look.  I made them all into surfaces and created my layer hierarchy to clean up my scene.I then used the intersect tool to create lines I could use as a guide for my cutting pipes. I created a pipe along the curve and set its base at the mid point and pulled its length to the end point. I duplicated the pipe and set its endpoint to the other end of the intersecting line. I used a polar array to get 8 around my object as all of the intersecting lines are perfectly spaced and circular. I repeated this process for every level of intersection. After creating my pipes and organizing them in the hierarchy, I used the split tool to remove the cuts on all of the surfaces and saved a version of the file I could go back to if needed. I continued to extrude the surfaces to the size necessary to fill the cuts.

Materials andd physical assembly: I used 1/4 inch MDF for the complete structure. After getting it laser cut, I began assembling it by guiding the horizontal circular pieces into one of the vertical pieces and shimmying it in. I did this until all but one piece was in to give the piece solid support while I glue the pieces.

To glue, I would place a small about inside the grooves that the pieces fit into and slide into a position I could hold while it solidified. I did this for all the pieces by removing them, applying glue, and then refitting onto the light. The leaves I simply glued and placed in there slots.

The fixture fit into the bottom with out issue as I slid it into an appropriate tightness. Installing the light was a bit of a pain as I did not set the hole as large as I should have and I had to get some rubber ended tongs to tighten the light.