7. Textile as Scaffold#
Crystallization#
Unfortunately this week I have not been very good and in the last two weeks I have also committed to compiling a business plan to participate in a municipal announcement, and have watched some tutorials on rhino because I have never done 3D.
What I can present are tests to create crystals with simple products such as salt, sugar, alum and borax. These are the ingredients that we could test at WeMake.
According to the recipes a precise dosage was recommended and in general I saw that it was advisable to add the elements in very hot water even boiling until the solution was saturated and one way to understand it was to add the elements until it not melt anymore.
Regarding the sugar cane was used and used the recommended qualities. Together with Giorgia we added sugar to the water while it was on the fire and I’m afraid it has caramelized a little. In addition, cane sugar is much more difficult to melt.
As for the alum The thread previously colored with the madder has released the color and after a night or two began to create small crystals.
Salt has in a short time crystallized in surface and beyond.
Borax has made a lot of foam. I put the doses indicated by the recipe but maybe I did something wrong because with the amount I put the foam has overflowed from the jug in which it was, the hibiscus flowers and the fabric have released color and in the end there was no result.
I tried to find other items to use that were not the salt or the sugar and I could not find it in the drugstores it was necessary to place an order on Amazon that would have required time for delivery. This and the other ways of manipulating the texture of a fabric will be tests that I will do in the future as a personal search for my models.
A couple of days later I tryed for everyone, except for the borax, to create a clean solution without too much residue in which to put a seed.
To do this I did not look at the dosage and added the element to the water until it melted again.
A couple of days later I looked for everyone, except for the borax, to create a clean solution without too much residue in which to put a seed.
To do this I did not look at the dosage and added the element to the water until it melted again.
When I tried to insert the wire with the sugar from the old solution, it dissolved immediately inside the new solution.
I tried to wait but to date has not yet created any crystal.
Not only the previous solution was not good but probably the new one created with normal sugar was not saturated enough.
I had put less sugar than the previous time because I had seen that brown sugar had created a condensation of sugar without water that gave no way to create the crystals.
As for the alum I found many residues on the bottom and on the wire.
Not having a seed of a certain size available, I inserted a part of the thread into the new solution and inserted into the old one of the fabric.
The result today is the best. The alum in the new solution has grown and grown along the wire, the bottom is a mass of small crystals while in the old solution the fabric and the thread always have masses of small crystals that are very fragile.
In a new solution I tried to insert an old crystal present at WeMake not knowing what kind it was.
What happened a few days later is that the crystal has slightly melted and small crystals have been created on the bottom, as in the other solutions.
As for the salt instead, in the slogan that had immediately presented crystals on the surface in the new, with available salt remained to WeMake, did not produce any crystal.
I must have put too little salt. The solution seemed saturated and I also used a little water and put the salt available until the element melted again.
I thought it was saturated and instead what I found was a crystallized layer on the edge of the glass as well as on the cup of the old solution.
The salt also came from two different brands but in similar jars, I did not notice what kind of salt was used for the first solution, that of the new seems to be a normal salt until non-iodized.
Borax did not leave any residue.
Wood textile#
The idea is to create a wood textile on a model of playsuit previously made by me.
I wanted to use the pattern created with grasshopper more precisely one of the two models printed in 3d.
From the grasshopper model the part in which the margins of the geometries, in this case hexagons, are extruded has been isolated. And then created a model that could fit in the outline of the suit and to do this it was necessary to digitize the pattern.
For the final project I had in mind to recreate a wood textile with the meshes of a female body to reproduce the same tight-fitting playsuit and see the difference without starting from the 2D pattern that then must be developed into test cloth and deflected thus shortening the development times. Notwithstanding that this is a work already studied and of its own competence.
But for the moment it seems a really hard undertaking and this is to study carefully and I’m considering whether to complete this idea or develop another.
In any case, the pattern was reported on Valentina and later worked on Inkscape.
The biggest problem throughout the first phase of the course was working with a not very powerful computer.
Also on this occasion it was difficult to work and for the first few hours it was impossible for me to move freely on grasshopper with the points of attraction because the pattern was very rich.
Once I was able to develop all the files for each piece of the pattern I tried to work on inkscape, but here too it was difficult.
Once the piece of paper pattern was imported, I tried to divide each segment in order to communicate directly with the lasercutter. With just one piece of paper model the computer still crashed and the application no longer responded.
There were infinite points that broke every single hexagon in many segments.
Calmly I could think about the steps and how to move to prevent this from happening, but the probelma was that Saturday would have been for me the last day available to take advantage of the fablab in view of the Christmas holidays. Not being able to stay still for at least 10 days and being in a hurry to do fast to introduce myself to several successive appointments, I rushed to lasercut a very thin hand-made patten only on one part of the paper pattern. I didn’t lasercutted the fabrics too because i hdn’t time, I was been at WeMake for 30 minutes not more.
Also because of the rush I did not realize that it would have been useful to slightly affect the margin of the paper pattern to accept even in a simple way, that each piece was positioned correctly.
I also did not realize that the numbers that had to be only engraved, have actually also marked the part of the front which, among other things, was already marked by previously lasered works. The piece of plywood was a recovery.
The technique suggested by francesco was to lay the glue on the geometries and then lay the fabric to be left in place with a weight on it for a few minutes. For this reason it was necessary to have the already lasered plywood.
After lasering the plywood and having very little time available it was necessary to take away everything and continue in the days to come, at home.
I passed some paper tape to keep it in its original position.
At first I tried to spread the vinyl glue for wood with a spatula, only on the geometries.
It was complicated to be able to spread well and quickly even in the smallest corners so I decided to pass the glue on the whole area and then, with the angle of the spatula, pass along the edges to remove the glue along the skeleton.
After laying the fabric I let it rest a little with a heavy book on it and I repeated the operation trying to carefully position each piece of fabric, checking the measurements from the file on Inkscape.
To help me, I first designed the shape of the talented fabric.
The plywood did not adhere well to the fabric, especially after I tried to eliminate the fine skeleton between one geometry and another.
I searched the internet for the best glue to do this kind of work and I found a blog that tells of four main types of glue, among which the first ever for price and retrieval, the vinyl glue.
However, it is said to leave in place with weight and clamps that hold the parts together, for a good 24 hours, certainly not ten minutes.
I contacted the guy who runs the blog and he confirmed the shutter speed, while for a quick application try the two-component epoxy glue, but it is a bit difficult to apply or try with hot glue.
Today I can say that I could work on a more powerful computer to create files for the lalsercutter with the original pattern.
At the same time, I could say, however, that as a model it is too complicated to develop with this technique.
The geometries have different sizes but at the same time close to each other even if to a different extent.
Applying the glue means having to spread it carefully in every single shape and quickly lay the fabric.
With such a large number of not very large geometries and taking care not to put the glue on the skeleton to eliminate, the work it would be a difficult undertaking.
According to the method I found and leaving it to rest for 24 hours I should check if, where the glue is removed, the skeleton would come away without leaving a trace and easy.