Sunday 8 May 2011

unit 2 Exploring materials, techniques and processes

Exploring materials, techniques and processes

this unit was part of my first year, i thought id put it up here anyway because it will let you know exactly what works for joining and cutting various materials for your projects such as a set for stop motion animation, I was experimenting making a tree for my stop motion animation project.

Experiments with twigs

Material


I decided to experiment with twigs to discover how suitable the material would be for my intended outcomes and to find out what techniques and processes could be used to achieve different outcomes.
I also wanted to see what techniques and processes were best suited to the material so I could consider using them in my final work.

Cutting the material

I have experimented with different ways of cutting the twigs to see the different effects I would get.
I have tried:-
Pliers
Knife
saw
garden secretors
snapping

Quality and suitability of material

I have chosen twigs to experiment with because I think they will be good for making a realistic looking tree, I think that twigs are good to use because they are stronger than other materials. I think they will make a good tree.

Potential and limitations of material
Twigs are perfect for making things such as fences and trees because of the texture and strength of them; however they may not be suitable for making moveable objects because they are rigid and lack flexibility.

What worked and what didn’t The knife and secretors all cut the material well but when using the knife I found it took so long that I decided this method of cutting was not practical even though the knife gave a really clean edge.
I decided not to use the saw in the end because I had to wait for the twigs to dry out first because I did not feel safe sawing a wet twig, this would take time so I decided to try a method of cutting that was intended for the material so I used some garden secretors and these worked perfectly. This method of cutting would be most suitable for making something that had to be neat like a log cabin or a perfectly straight fence.
The pliers worked and left a snagged edge which would be good for making parts of an old tree or a rickety old fence.


twigs cut using different methods.


cut with knife


cut with pliers


cut with scissors


smapped with hands


cut with garden secreters

Most suitable cutting technique for my intended outcome

I think that the garden secretors would be best for cutting the twigs for my tree because I need to stick the twigs together and to do this I need a really neat edge and the garden secretors will help to achieve this.

Joining the material

I experimented with sticking the material together to see what worked best and to see what effects I would get I tried:-
glue gun
PVA glue
cello tape
masking tape
electrical tape
pritt stick

What worked and what didn’t

The only thing that really worked for sticking the material together was the glue gun, I used the glue gun to carefully glue the straight edges I had cut together, and it worked really well it kept the material together and it looked neat, which is what I wanted for my intended outcome. The only thing wrong with using the glue gun was that it left stringy bits of glue on the twig but these could easily be removed by gently pulling them away.
The electrical tape worked well but it was not suitable for my intended outcome because it looked messy, it would be a good thing to use if I wanted to cover the whole twig because it holds the material together and is also flexible.
All of the other experiments I did were useless because they did not stick the material together at all.

Most suitable joining technique for my required outcome

I think that the glue gun worked best for my intended outcome because it held the material together really well and the electrical tape worked best for joining and still leaving the twigs with flexibility. Maybe a mixture of the two techniques would be a good idea.


cello tape


electrical tape


glue stick


pva glue


glue gun


masking tape

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