The Tray

THE TRAY
In this week’s lesson, we were being assessed on shaping and forming metal sheet into a small tray. Initially, we went with Martin, to mark out the template with the assistance of the laser cutting machine. This template allowed us to see which radius we would pursue i.e. the smaller the radius the harder shaping the sides and corner however the better the finish that is achieved.



CNC Machine making Template of Radius



Curving out the edges of the timber template on the sander

After we had decided what radius we were going to attempt we got our two pieces of timber to make out templates. Once my partner and I had drawn our template on both pieces of timber, we went to the sander to carve out our template on piece of timber. Once we had our template of both pieces of timber, we had to shape our timber.
 


Marking out template on Metal Sheet

In shaping our timber, we initially were going to use the guillotine, however due to the amount of people the waiting time would be been too much. Therefore, with a bit of help from Daniel we got the curved snips that we clamped to the bench and successfully cut our edges on the metal sheet of about 1mm to 2mm before the line we drawn. We then used the aviation snips to cut off any excess metal sheet. Once this was achieved, we had to sandwich the metal sheet in between the two timbers as this will allow us to form my edges.



When beginning the shaping of my edges and corners, I initially struggled trying to form the shape with the nylon mallet as I kept trying to hit one side of the metal sheet, which was expanding and stretching my corner. After realising this, with strategic hits, I decided to hit both sides of the metal sheet whilst trying to move into the corner part. Once all edges were folded, I had to use the aviation snips to tidy the initial corner that I had ruined, and with the plenish hammer and dolly I had smoothed the sides and corners. After this I decided to smooth out the tips of my tray on the sand paper on the bench to give it a nicer finish.
This exercise had presented few difficulties, when trying to join the corners, as the metal sheet started to fold to my first corner. However, advise from Daniel and Russell ensured that I could overcome these difficulties, and produce a decent tray.


 



Looking forward to the next module.   
 

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