eoin campbell digital making

The aim of this task was to form a 'blister' in a piece of sheet aluminium. To do this, a teardrop shape was cut out of two MDF boards, the sheet aluminium was placed between them and all fastened securely with four nuts and bolts in the corners. With the sheet aluminum secured in place, the blistering technique began. A small end of an egg shaped mallet was used first to form an edge to work with. Substantial stretching of the inner section, a sign of a quality blister. Excess material has been trimmed off. Edges were lightly filed and then sanded to finish. C'est magnifique.

After having formed our trays independently, my work partner Logan and I put the trays together for comparison. The similarities and craftsmanship of trays are simply astounding to say the least. Such precision..

To begin making the tray, the form was cut and a 10mm edge was scribed. The material was then placed between two wooden blocks in a vice and the 10mm edges were hammered up. The corners were left until last. The small puckers/ folds that began to form during the process of shrinking the corners became difficult to smooth out as the dug into the wooden block template. To overcome this I placed a scrap piece of aluminium between the tray and wooden block, this made forming the corners of the tray much easier and neater. An uneven edge was the result of stretching and shrinking parts of the material. To ameliorate this, I scribed a line around the edge of the tray, cut the material back and sanded to finish. Looks pretty neat, right?