Stage 6: Prototype and Final folio submission.

Final stages of glueing the timber slats to the aluminium frame.

 The day later after all the glued parts had dried and the product was ready for final testing.

The final product is durable and stable to sit on. and weighs 1.98kg, 0.02 of a kilogram lighter than the limit set forth.

 The final product prototype can hold up to 100kg with minimal flex and structure deformation.

(Product and project complete!)

Stage 6: Prototyping: Part 4

Finally it was time to paint and clear the frame. with both the timber slats and the frame all primed up and as many imperfections as possible filled up, i began to spray paint. My father is a automotive refinisher and airbrush artist and was able assist me in mixing paints and painting this product. 

For the frame i decided to go with a very nice Voodoo Blue to paint the frame. Once the frame was finished with 5 coats of Voodoo. I cleared it with a 4:1 mixture of speed clear, to give a nice finished glossy look. 

The same technique was used in painting the timber slats. Though instead of using a pre-made paint, i wanted a create a mix between black and silver to get a nice dark silver effect on the timber slats to contrast the aluminium frame.

Again once both products were painted over multiple times with 4 or 5 coats of metallic paint. I cleared them both and left them to dry, before joining the final parts together.

Stage 6: Prototyping: Part 3

Once the frame was constructed. I set out on building the seating plane out of plywood. Because of some changes i had to make to lighten the project, the amount of material had to be reduced to allow for primer, paint, clear, and screws to be added to the project.

The plywood slats were very easy to construct and prep for primering. I decided to play around with the amount of material i could take out of the timber to make it lighter; especially from the underneath side of it. However it proved a bit unsuccessful due to the amount of facilities i had on hand at home i could not do a nice enough job to make it presentational quality. So the end product was a simple curved slot where the slat will sit on top of the frame: as seen above.

Above seen is the aluminium frame with its first coat of primer. note some of the tubing was uneven due to the welding.

Here i am primering the timber slats for the last time and fixing up and chips or parts with body filler. After i primered all the slats, i had to give them a light sand back so i could paint them later on.

As described above some of the frames joins were uneven or i took too much out. How ever this problem is easily fix with some automotive body filler and some sand paper.

Stage: 6 Prototyping: Modification Page

Above is two pages of modifications i was required to make to my stool, encountered from problems i ran into in the construction process. 

Stage 6: Prototyping: Part 2

After many days of waiting to get some assistance to weld up this product, and the submission date closing soon. Self improving my welding skills over that time. I made the decision to weld up the entire project myself. After 2 full days of cutting to size te cross beams, setting up the two frames into a strap tightened shape, i welded up this project myself. With great difficulty and some minor fixable mistakes it ended up being a success and the frame was finally welded up for grinding and sanding.

Once the frame was welded, it was easy to clean it up by re-heating the welds and or grinding them down or sanding them back by hand.

Stage 6: Prototyping: Part 1

     

For this part of the project my most difficult thing to date was sourcing sufficient materials in this projects time frame. I ended up going to two different aluminium suppliers for the correct materials. Luckily both suppliers were located in clayton and were not difficult to visit or select materials.

The next part of prototyping stage was to construct the frame and cross beam rods for the main structure of the product. Involve very accurate hand bending of tubing and angle measurement to get everything to line up correctly. i also on this day cut the centre lengths of tubing for the frame. i cut them all at 370 to make sure when welded to the frame so it would be under the 400x400x400 specifications.

After learning early on that aluminium is apparently the worst material to possible weld ever in existence . i used as much time as possible trying to teach myself how to weld aluminium as good as possible. with assistance from andrew in the workshop. we were able to well the first component of the frame. (the outer shapes.) How ever it became increasingly difficult to get assistance for aluminium welding as the workshop was a very busy place.

(Above is an image of a test i had practice on to help us get the general shape and to get aluminium welding practice.)