1. State of the art, project management and documentation#

This week I worked on defining my final project idea and started to getting used to the documentation process. my background as a car mechanic and natural builder took me into building my own felt machines, once i learned that nobody in mexico was fabricating this material and very very few are doing it in the world.

there are two process to fabricate felt. A dry option working with needles, which are very expensive and not an easy option to built a home made machine so I choose to explore the wet process thats seem slighty easier to hack and find parts.

meter and a half wide wet roller felt maker machine.

detail of the recycled cart wheels used to turn the pvc tube into a proper roller. the two buttom rollers move up and down to compress the pre felt wool. (not shown) A washing machine engine and transmission were used to turn the rollers and add friction to compress the wool into felt. The heating central tube element add the necessary high tempeture to open the wool fibers by injecting steam coming from a high pressure cooker.

After using the roller machine, I learned it was very slow process and it only worked for 1.5 long to 1.2 meters wide felt pieces. so I decided to start a new machine changing the rollers for two wide metal plates. this time 3 by 3 meters. once again, with a very short budget…

using a car jack to power the secondary cable-pulley system to rise and lower the steam plate.

rising the cooper tubes after succesfull test, to paint with high temperature paint.

once the wool has been washed (using just soap) and then carded into a “belt of organised fibers” I place three layers of this in perpendicular fashion

adding hot soapy water before lowering the top plate which will steam the wool while the bottom plate moves front and back for a about one centimeter to friction and tangled the fibers

Research#

this is the video that made me fell in love with the tradition and quality of medium density felt cloth and decided to get into this adventure that later turned into selling organic mattress

-[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJ0uojUHYdA&t=24s]

this is a modern dry process needle punch wool felt machinery line.

-[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HLz-2iDPU4]

Into the future#

From race car mechanic, I jumped to be a permaculture designer 18 years ago out of my passion for nature. However five years ago I decided to stop my creativity and learning as a natural builder and focus on doing just one thing!! to improve my income. This took me to learn and research on my own until I turn a felt maker. with a bussines mind! So now that I am deeply happy to be part of fabricAdemy and I am learning so many new techniques. I know my creativity has being highly empowered to design and make so much more than just organic beds and furniture!

will see what lands for my final project, so many options out there!