Final Project

November-December 2019

Motivation/Design Intent:

During my ideation phase, I found that some overlying themes I kept returning to were the ideas of meditation and peace and its opposite of chaos and unexpectedness. I also wanted something that could be interacted with to help me think and reflect. I synthesized these ideas into a dim sum steamer-inspired container where I could make patterns and rest. As Forrest Gump said of a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re gonna get.

Originally, the design focused on more simple circular shaped box, but after some encouragement from Craig, I thought more about what I wanted the box to convey as well as what other ways I could shape the overall geometry.

Machining Strategy:

I chose aluminum because I liked the lightweight feel and soft shine that it has when polished. Plus, from a machinability standpoint, it’s easy to work with. I purchased stock extrusion cut to length from Alan Steel and then used a manual mill to prep all my stock. Since there were multiple flats in my design, I chose to use tabs for the lid and a clamp ring approach for the bottom. Each part had one flip in it, so being careful with measurable WCS was imperative. Overall, my design probably could have been altered to be a little more material efficient. I used large blocks of aluminum then machined most of the stock away to expose the piece. I did make the decision to not worry about machining too fine of a finish with the ball endmill because I knew I wanted to have a mirror finish. In the interest of reducing machine time, I chose to leave slightly larger cusps and sand them down. To finish, I masked off my design and bead blasted them on.

Materials:

3” x 3” x 1.25” Aluminum 6061-T6
4” x 4” x 1.25” Aluminum 6061-T6

Tools:

HSS 1/2” square end mill
HSS 3/8” ball end mill
HSS 1/4” square end mill
HSS 1/8” ball end mill

Challenges/Lessons Learned:

One design challenge was designing a part and then tools that worked with the design. I spent a bit of time making sure that when using a ¼” square end mill to make the pocket for the tabs, it could actually reach the bottom without colliding with the tip of the pyramid. Ultimately, I decided that instead of extending the end mill which would have made it less stiff, I would just machine it from the backside. If nothing else, this illustrated to me that one weakness I have is getting fixated on a method.

One unexpected machining occurrence was a collet failing me on the 3rd job. While adaptive clearing the inside of the bottom, the tool plunged into the material a little too quickly and pushed the tool into the collet, meaning that at lower depths, the part wasn’t being machined correctly. This happened twice until I swapped the collet out. Fortunately, none of these “failures” broke the tool or material. Next time, if I choose to use plunge, I’ll be a little more conservative especially on larger tools.

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