During these last two weeks I have created the last small detailed pieces of my model and primed, sprayed, sand sealed and assembled the whole piece.
During week 8 I used sand sealer to block some of the holes in the foam I used to make the cushions as I had tested this would be the best way to disguise the foam as leather. I used a rag to apply a thin coat of sealer to create an even surface and still keep some of the foam texture. I let these pieces sit for a couple of hours while I got on with other pieces for my chair.
I laser cut some of the details I needed for the model from 1mm, 2mm and 6mm acrylic which would become the legs and bracket under the seat. I set up the files using Rhino and Illustrator.
I started with the 2mm acrylic pieces as these simply needed assembling and a light sanding so the paint would stick to them. The red lines in the illustrator file mean cut and the black rounded diamond shape means rasterized engrave. Once the pieces were assembled using diclo I rounded the edges to make them closer to the image I had found of the chair. I added some wire and a sphere of milliput for the lever and used double sided tape to attach the piece to a lolly stick in preparation for spraying.
After completing this section I went on to the other acrylic pieces which were the legs, I started by tapering them using a flat needle file as I knew they were more triangular shaped than flat, I jumped between a needle file and sandpaper debating what was easiest but both were very slow. I knew the pieces were too small to use the large machinery for so I ended up using a dremel for the sanding which sped up the process massively and I hand sanded for the final finish up to a 400 grit.
I started week 9 by using milliput to sculpt the wheels and laser cut rings to add to them to create the details shown in the photos I had for the wheels. I sanded down the acrylic for the legs and added a bevel to the detailed piece on the main leg bar. I sanded all of these pieces up to a 600 grit sand paper and used epoxy resin to attach it all together as well as metal wire pins to create a secure attachment.
I went back to the foam pieces and checked the sand sealer had left a nice smooth finish on the cushions, which they had.
I went ahead and primed all sections of the chair separately: the five cushions, back piece, legs and bracket detail. Once the primer was dry I went back and sanded the pieces in areas that weren’t perfect and reprimed them.
The next stage was spraying and I was very concerned about the finish of the spray as I needed the chair to be shiny and textured to give off an appearance of leather. I took a test piece of foam into the spray booth and fiddled around with the paint and air sections. I landed on using a lot more air than usual for the orange sections so that the texture of the paint was speckled giving more of an appearance of the fabric. I sprayed this first and let the paint sit overnight to ensure it was fully dry. I then assembled the chair. I used epoxy to secure the cushions on the base and resprayed in the same way ensuring the whole chair would be evenly textured.
On the underside of the chair there is a section of a different coloured fabric which I decided to determine using a different coloured paint, masked off. I therefore measured the section and taped the chair up ensuring I had covered the rest of the chair so I wouldn’t ruin the paint I had previously sprayed.
Finally I sprayed the detailed pieces black and silver as necessary, waited for the paint to dry and used epoxy resin to secure them all together.
hannahrosemaking 