This is a class i was only in for one quarter. so 1/4 of the year, but i enjoyed my time in there anyways, the class covers a different material every quarter, and 4th quarter was plastic.... so here goes:
This is basically a compilation of many of the things i did throughout the year. first off the white things at the bottom right of the picture is injection molding, which is basically just pushing melted plastic into a mold, which is actually harder that i thought it would be... as you can see there are two screwdrivers, they werent too hard to make, there is one Phillips head and one flat., there are two poker chips, which were some of the easier things to make, there is also one checker piece, it took me a couple tries at first but i got the hang of it. One golf tee, they say its not very good for actually golfing, but ill probably not get a chance to use it anyways so all well. and finally there is a paperclip, its the rectangular looking thing, it is for some reason the hardest thing to make with injection molding, in fact one kid in the class probably made at least thirty failed attempts before he got it, anyways before i even tried my hand at it i had already gotten the hang of the machine, (all though i dont know if its technically big enoug to be called a machine, but all well) so it only took me about 4 times before i got it right.... anyways! just above those is a red piece of plastic with the word Nintendo on it, that was plastic etching, i printed a picture like that and traced it onto a piece of paper that was already stuck to the plastic, then i etched it out and pulled the paper off, i think it turned out pretty good, but for a while i wore it on the zipper of my jacket, and then i accidentally slammed it in a car door, so although you cant really see the crack, it did snap in half, and i superglued it back. above that is something less pretty looking, but looks like a yellow T of somesort, this was the project of plastic welding, which is basically using something hot (a wood burner in this case) and melting the plastic together... all around this is various colored nintendo controllers, this was a plastic resin pour thing, and the creation of this was fairly simple, i took the resin (we had cups with a line on it that said how much at a time) and added color, then 28 drops of catalist, mixed it together, and poured it into the mold, then let it sit over night, pulled the mold off, and viola there it was. the mold however was more complicated:
these are pictures of the mold i used, and made... this was done by using an actual nintendo controller (which i brought from home, and replaced with one from ebay.. so in a way i bought the very one i used) and i put some sort of rubber based stuff on it every day for a couple weeks, applying one coat at a time with a brush until Mr.Hill gave the ok that it was ready, then i pulled it off the controller (which wasn't too disimilar from how it is pulling it off the resin cast) however a problem immerged the first day, i was told to put it in a box that i would cut a rectangular hole out of, which i did, and it took about 1 1/2 batches of the resin to fill it (the other half basically just went to waste) and the next day when i pulled the mold off the top of it was swollen up (which is visible, though not in the picture, of the green controller just above the plastic welding. clearly the top part of the mold had a little too much give in it so it expanded out.. Mr. Hill then told me to make a wooden thing to put the mold in that would hold it somewhat, which is shown in the picture, my friend scotty (who was in the class with me) helped me make it and i tried the second time, this time it took about 1 1/4 batch of the resin, i waited a day and again it had a slight bulge (though not as bad as before) in the top of it, (which is the blue controller at the top of the picture) the problem was that the shape of the mold was a bit thicker at the bottom, due to the buttons and what not, then the top, so even though the wood casing held it firm, there was still the same give at the top. Mr. Hill then had the idea to get smaller pieces of wood and tape them in at the part where it got skinnier on the inside of the wood frame, i did just that and i knew it must have helped because it took one batch of resin, with no left overs, to fill the mold (which was a lucky shot, im not sure if any other mold made was a perfect fill like that) and the next day the controller was a success, and then i made a few more (all but one are present, which i gave to timothy as a part of his birthday present) and then my friend Scotty made a few, he couldn't come up with anything to make a mold of and ran out of time in the year to do it, so i let him use my mold to make a few, which got him the resin part of his grade, though he missed out on the mold making part... he still did good overall though.... anyways, all this was a part of my grade along with:
This is vacuum forming, the way it works is you put the sheet of plastic on the machine thing, and turn on the heat, it then becomes somewhat droopy and loosens up a bit, then you flip it over on a side with a bunch of tiny suction holes on it, and flip the switch to vacuum, so on top of these holes you put anything (so long as it isn't too tall) of your choosing and the plastic will take the shape of it as it rapidly cools down. The nintendo controller used in this was the same used in the mold making process, but this was beforehand, when the cord was still on (if you cant tell it was cut off just before the mold was made) as far as in class time, this didn't take very long to make, however as you can tell "Potter" is in the cord, i did this during my third hour class (which i was only in the 4th quarter as well) which is Study Skills, this class was put here so students (mainly the ones with bad grades, or had a job or soemthing, which made me the perfect candidate to be allowed in, to have) could do their homework and school work for other classes and get ahead, so i brought the controller and two tubes of superglue, and got help from my two friends, who were also in the class, Brad and Jon (recognize the names? they are very helpful) and we printed a paper that said "Potter" in big font, then we stapled it to a piece of cardboard (which was pulled out of my binder) then we superglued the cord to itself, and to the paper, which included pinching it for things such as the T's with plyers my friend convienently carried around. and a few days later (this took a while) we tore the paper from the card board and cut the paper to fit (so it could still hold the shape of the letters, and not interfere with the vacuum) and thats how that happened.
anyways, there came a point in the class where i simply ran out of things to do, being as how i flew through the class at a good speed, and so i went into the wood shop, and made a few things:
These are a couple things i did, on the right is a piece of wood that i used a wood burner on that says (as you can see) "Ultimate S The Great) which is a title i made for myself during my sophomore year, and i decided then i liked it, so it stuck with me, in fact my facebook URL is www.facebook.com/Ultimate.S.The.Great, as well as being my username of a few sites, but you get the point. anyways on the left is something i made being modled from something else. That something else was a sword rack that had three holders on it, this was from swords i bought from david, and i think he bought them from andrew. so if he ever reads this he might almost recognize it, anyways, thing is though, i have 4 swords, one was given to me by a friend when i moved from uvalde a couple years ago. so when i traced it over i did it with four spots rather than the 3. Another reason i did this was so i could make it into a wall mount, the ones i had before had somewhat of a curvy spine, which created the inconvinience, anyways as you can see i didn't have time to make the bottom piece that holds it together, but ill probably just use the one from the old thing, it should work just as well as any other...
Somethign else i made in this class, but forgot to take a picture of before Timothy left, was a wooden sword, perhaps he will put a picture up sometime, maybe. anyways the making of it consisted of a lathe for the handle, and then i used a bandsaw to cut a basic tip and the indentions on the side, then i used one of those circular sanders that move up and down while spinning round and round, which i sanded the blade part from, this alone took a few days but i finally got it done, then i made the guard out of a couple pieces of other wood, and then glued them on, after that i got a dark (kind of black) woodstain and stained the whole thing, if i had more time i would have done a few things different, but the end of the year came to fast. anyways im schedualed to be in this class again next year, but only the first semester, so i will miss out on whatever happens third quarter, but all well i guess. anyways i plan on making a couple other swords in the class during my free time next year, but i plan on improving my methods a bit, you'll probably see how it turns out next year many months from now, anyways im done blogging for now, i might have one up tomorrow about a bin i made here around the house, but anyways ttfn.
