Prototyping

This is the tube bender, which was used to bend 10 aluminium tubes at a right angle. Luckily I was able to find aluminium tubes at a hardware store with a diameter of 16mm and with half of the wall thickness of the aluminium tubes I had found earlier, this helped substantially with the problem of possibly exceeding the weight limit.

Aluminium sheet metal was cut and bent at right angles, to have the tubes welded to.

 I finally received the CNC routed plywood frame I submitted more than a week ago, which I chiseled out of the plywood board. To further reduce the weight, each middle section of the frame is perforated.

 After sanding the frame components, the frame was glued together and clamped for an hour, the two sections of the frame are not glued together, the photo was taken to depict the scale of the final product.

 After foreseeing some difficulties with welding the aluminium frame together (unsightly weld lines, long duration to receive welding instructions from lab assistants, etc.), the prototyping process was rethought to account for the potential of waiting until next week to be able to weld the frame, whilst maintaining the aesthetic of the final product. The solution was to cut 16mm holes in the aluminium sheets and into the wooden frame itself, to allow the tubes to sit inside and be supported by the wood.

 This is not the final prototype, the last three photos were taken to give a representation of the final form of the stool.

Tomorrow in the workshop: drilling 16mm holes into the wooden frame, cutting domino joints into the wooden frame, drilling screw holes into the aluminium sheet, polish, sand, assemble.