Week 5: Woodcutting Introduction






Week 5: This week, we transitioned our groups into the next medium for our 3D sculpture course. My group was to work on woodcutting to create a box using a laser wood cutter and Adobe Illustrator. We had used it beforehand in a previous class but I was fairly rusty with it. But not long after getting back into it, I became familiar with it again. Here are the results of the first week working on it.

Craft: For the craft, we used the following equipment: Adobe Illustrator, a Mac computer, flash drive, a laser cutter, Baltic plywood, and Wood Glue. Illustrator was used to creating the file in which the laser cutter would use as a guide to cut out the shapes of each side of the cube. The laser would cut out the shapes, and the wood glue would blind the shapes together forming a single shape. The concepts of space were used in this portion of the process since we had to clearly define what sides were going to have certain sizes and tabs. Some could not be the same size as the others as that would make an uneven cube of three-inch sides.

Composition: I started off with going into Adobe Illustrator and designing the three side templates as the instructor has requested. There would be three sides of different sizes due to the nature of a cube and the interlocking sides needing to be of different lengths to form an even three inches on all sides. One side was three inches on all sides with 'female' tabs going inward 1/8 inches to compensate for the 1/8 inch width of the Baltic plywood we were using. Another was three inches on two sides with female tabs going in 1/8 inches and the other two were 1/8 inch short on the other with male tabs sticking out 1/8 inches. The last side was 1/8 inches short of three inches on all sides with male tabs sticking out the same 1/8 inches. The line size had to be reduced to that of 0.001 inches which is the laser cutter's size. I also colored in the three shapes to make it easier to tell the difference. Following that, I transferred my files over to the workstation computer hooked up to the laser cutter with a flash drive. After that, I used the laser cutter's program to cut a 24inx12in Baltic Plywood panel into six three-inch pieces. With the taps glued with wood glue, I combined them all into the cube you see above. Making sure the shape and the dimensions were right was important in getting scale and the shape perfect.

Concept: The concept of this project was to get us reacquainted with the technology and the tools that we will be using for the next three weeks. The understanding shape and how it affects how long and wide aside will be will be important to construct stable and working shapes in the future. It blew my mind that you couldn't have all sides the same size. Then I remembered the fact that some sides overlap and interconnect to form a more solid shape. For me, the hardest part was figuring out how it would all fit together. The tabs and the size of each side took a bit of mental math and conception but eventually I got it. This was but a practice to get us in the mindset and have us consider how shape and size will affect our process for our next project, a trophy.

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