Header Clamps

We have a rather nice model workshop at my school,
The newest feature is a small foundry that I wanted to learn to use.
I used one of the old rotten header clamps as pattern, but it had a lot of small rust craters that would drag out the sand when I tried to make the mould.
That was dealt with by covering the thing with a sheet of 0.5mm acrylic on the vacuum table. See the lousy cell phone video below.
Next up was packing the sand tightly around the pattern, flip the frame and gently remove the plastic with the old clamp in it. I now had one half of the mould, the other half was just flat packed sand. Clamp the two together and pour in some aluminium (720°C).
I think they look pretty good just out of the mold. The next thing to do is taking down the burrs and gates in tha lathe  which I have no idea about how to use yet.

The pattern is ready. The wrinkles in the plastic make good air escape channels.

Packing sand.

The cope.

The drag and cope.

The gate is covered with a handfull of sand to let the metal set.

Et voilá!

They're already looking way better than the original.

Virtual Seat Pan

Over the past two weeks I have had a course in AutoCad and Rhinoceros. And though I'm not really good at it I thought I might as well try to make something useful so here's The drawings for my new seat project.
As to actually making it I think my best bet is to hammer it out of a sheet of aluminium over a wooden shape and then rivet on the brackets.

Sub frame and seat pan modelled in Rhino

Sub frame and seat pan modelled in Rhino

Projections from Rhino

Template made with AutoCad

Sambuichi

I had the great opportunity to participate in a one and a half day seminar lead by the great japanese architect Hiroshi Sambuichi.

Yesterday he held a lecture to tell us a little about his work and filosophy. I find his whole thought about making architecture part of the cycles of nature extremely inspirational.
Sambuichi tried to learn us that the earth consists of inert and moving material in a mutual influental relationship and that we should consider all the possible ways we influent the movements of air, water, etc. But it's not as much taking natural phenomenons into account as it's about controlling them and using them to your advantages.

For this short seminar my co-student and I seeked to use and intensify the howling winds at the western coast of jutland. Basicaly our structure consists of a big funnel that leads the winds into a giant organ pipe. We found that leaving the mouth of the pipe the only opening facing south creates a concentration of light at the flue. This emphazises the small space where the sound is actualy generated and makes this a very special area to experience. I can't imagine it's a very pleasant place to stay, but it was really fun and educational to make.

And please excuse the grimey cell phono photos.

Our model

Sambuichi seminar

Sambuichi seminar

Sambuichi seminar

Sambuichi seminar

Sambuichi seminar

Sambuichi seminar

Sambuichi seminar