Sunday, November 16, 2008

From Refrigerator to Robot

I took a drawing of my 5-year old daughter's and scanned it in as a black and white image. I brought it into Partworks using the "Import Bitmap for Tracing", and followed that up with the "Fit Vectors to Bitmap." I had to clean up some stray vectors.

The images was them V-carved into a piece of black Komatex (a foamed PVC similar to Sintra) using a 60 degree V-bit. The material was held fast to the spoilboard with a high-bond acrylic tape from a company called Nitto-Denko. (It is a low VOC tape that we have around because it can be object-friendly in our museum exhibits in many cases.)



The final product measures 12" wide by 18" high - It took about 15 minutes to cut. Using a drywall taping knife I applied vinyl spacking compound and struck it off. For the finish the surface of the board was wiped with a damp cloth, giving the appearance of a chalkboard.

The figure on the lower left is not a centaur - it is our dog Marlowe, damn it - open your eyes. Mom, Fletcher and Chloe round out the tableau. Dad must be working on the robot.

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