Using moulding techniques to produce a table design and scale model.
Sketching & Cardboard
I made fewer sketches for my table designs. First, I had a clearer idea of what to explore; my classmates had been working on tabletops and I was interested in creating a mould process for both a base and a top. Secondly, I realised sketching wasn’t communicating my ideas clearly to the shop technicians, so I decided to make a cardboard model (images 3-9) to communicate my intentions of making a stand-alone mould (rather than a mould each leg).
1 
2
3 
4 
5 
6 
7 
8 
9
Mould Making & Pouring
I created my mould pieces in AutoCAD and used the laser cutter to cut the pieces out of foam core boards (image 10). I assembled and taped these pieces together to create a watertight seal (images 11 & 13), before mixing coloured jesmonite and pouring into the constructed moulds (image 14).
10 
11 
12 
13 
14 
15 
16 
17
The blue mould (image 16) was the simplest, with straighter legs than my initial drawing, primarily because I was concerned about possible leakage in the mould. For my second mould (image 17), I elongated the initial idea to create a futuristic feeling table that could be made to almost any scale. I was also curious to see how making thinner legs out of jesmonite would turn out.
18 
19 
20 
21 
22 
23 
24 
25 
26 
27 
28
I cut a circular top out of MDF, then used the vacuum former to create a plastic mould of the top (image 28 & 32). Before moving to a larger scale, I would like to make a mould for a single pour including the table base and top.
When assembling the mould, I also used a small amount of duct tape on the inside. The areas of the pour that touched the tape had a shiny finish and were much easier to remove from the mould (images 21-23). Had I lined the mould fully with duct tape it would have been much less labour intensive.
In both designs I needed to create a deeper central section to provide a stronger connection between the legs. In the first mould, the legs broke apart quite quickly while removing the mould. The mould was stuck to the jesmonite more firmly than I expected (images 21-13 & 27) and the pressure needed to pulling the pieces off was broke the central area apart. I used superglue to attach it back together (image 25).
The mould also left a small amount of foam core board on the jesmonite. Although not what I was expecting, the board created an opportunity for two patina effects. In the blue model, I removed as much of the board material as possible, then used a hand sander to finish the legs. On the red model, I used warm water and a scrubbing brush to remove excess board material. These two removal methods created very different effects (image 20 vs image 31).
29 
30 
31 
32