UNIT 8 Assembly of my Final Piece: Acrylic Cross Sections

Problem Solving 

Health and Safety

Step 1. First of all I traced around the shapes of all twenty - I removed one of the neck cross sections as the equal amount of layers will help when measuring - cross sections from my acetate maquette as I had created the must accurate shape of the facial structure I could recreate. I then scaled up the size of the cross sections by 71% (A4 to A3) cutting them all out and taping them securely to sheets of clear acrylic ensuring to add on 12 mm of excess material as this would be the part that slots into the base.

Step 2. I then cut out all of the shapes carefully on the band saw making sure I was wary of the blade and wore eye protection at all times.

Step 3. I then moved onto to sanding down the edges of all twenty shapes. I began on the disc sander removing the teeth marks from cutting the plastic on the band saw making sure to not sand away too much material as I didn't want to loose the shape or size of the cross sections. I wore eye protection at all times whilst using this machine.

Step 4. I then moved onto the spindle sander to sand the concave edges such as at the side of the nose. I had to use different sized sanding drums depending on how tight the concave curve. I used eye protection at all times whilst using this machine.

Step 5. To ensure the edges were smooth enough for the light to escape through I had to vigorously sand the edges. First I used a p120 grit sandpaper as due to my lack of time I wanted to speed up the process therefore I didn't start off with a really course sandpaper. This sandpaper would remove the vertical marks produced by the belt and spindle sanders.

Step 6. I then moved down to a finer sandpaper (p240) to remove the horizontal marks produced by the courser sandpaper. Using finer and finer sandpaper is the quickest way to producing an unmarked smooth surface on plastic.

Step 7. I then moved onto wet sanding to ensure all marks are sanded away and the surface of the edge is smooth and clear. For the wet sanding process I used two different extra fine sandpapers; first I used p300 and then repeated the process on all twenty cross sections with a p400 sandpaper.

Step 8. The final step to making sure the edges of the plastic would be smooth and clear allowing the light to escape was to buffer the edges. Whilst using the buffing machine I wore eye protection and had a firm grip on the plastic cross sections. 

Step 9. To double check all the cross sections were the right shape I created a mock up base that separated each layer by 12 mm. I found that two layers from the forehead region of the face were two wide therefore to resolve this issue I marked out how wide the layers should be using the surrounding pieces as a guide. I then repeated steps two to eight - following all health and safety requirements - to the edges of the two cross sections and when place back in line the problem had been resolved.