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Portfolio
Here you will find my sketches, prototypes, the steps I took to manufacture my product and the final product.
Prototype Making
The idea I have decided to elaborate on is the swing table set, this is because this piece of furniture has the greatest possibility to increase my skill set whilst also providing a great piece of multi-purpose garden furniture, made soley out of recycled products.
I will make the frame out of pine wood previously used for a support frame for cement laying. The swing hooks I recycled from my neighbours old swing set, and the rope I will use is left over from when I used take commissions to make furniture. The swings themselves were made for recycled decking. The table will be made out of parquet flooring that my friends parents had left over from when they re-did their flooring, and the trough for the drinks cooler I will make out of acrylic which I had lying around my house from when it was redecorated.
Making the Frame
I started off by making the pine frame. This required me to cut the wood to length, using a mitre saw. Then I drilled two holes before screwing 2 wood screws in place, to ensure the wood didn't split, whilst still maintaing its strength. Once all 4 sides were asembled, I used gorilla PVA wood glue along with more screws to join it all together. Then I attached the swing hooks by drilling a 12mm hole through the wood and the modifying washers, by angle grinding and bending them apart with plyers, to ensure a snug fit before bolting it on and angle grinding to excess thread to fit another plank of wood, with 22mm holes drilled half into it. This was so that it slotted in, which would strengthen the frame.
Making the Swings
I started off by cutting the old decking into lengths of 60cm using a jigsaw. This allowed me to acheive a clean cut. Next I cut a piece of decking into a strip which I used to keep the slabs of decking together. To attach the rope I drilled two 16mm holes into the decking and threaded the rope through the holes, creating a triangle shape. To bind the ends of the rope, I wrapped a length of string around the rope very tightly. There is 4 rope-ends per swing which I used this method for. I repeated this for both swings.
I then tested the swings out with my sister, and found that the frame was a bit unstable. To overcome this problem I strengthed the frame by adding in support beams to the top, which prevented the entire frame moving when sat on the swings.
Making the Table
To make the table I used an off-cut of 12mm plywood and screwed it onto the structure. Then I tested patterns of parquet from my friends parents old floor, and asked my family what their favourite design was. I then glued the preferred pattern onto the plywood sheet using wood glue, leaving a 16x16cm hole for the cooler. After the glue was set, I trimmed the sides down using a jig saw, and then sanded the table down using a belt sander, to ensure a smooth surface, with no splinters or 'jaggedly' bits.
Making the Cooler
Adding Aesthetics
Coronita Fairy Lights
In order to improve the overall aesthetics of my product, as well as keeping with the sustainable, reusable theme, I found some solar panel powered fairy lights, which could be used to light up the table and add a romantic sense to my product. They looked a little bare when just placed on the structure, and due to coronavirus there has been an accumulation off beers in the house, which has in turn left lots of empty bottles lying around. So, I used some silicone and attached lights into coronita (very topical) bottles, left them to try for a few days, then tested different designs to hang them up, the one I chose, lit up the table the most whilst also supporting the weight of them. The solar panel charges the lights during the day, and they automatically turn on when it gets dark (although you can manually turn them on and off to preseve battery life)
Jack Day
FMP
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