Aluminium Skin Experiments

Aluminium Skin Experiments

The 1st experiment T-shaped aluminium sheet

After doing the 3D template, the aluminium skin is about to begin. 

Firstly, cut the aluminium sheet into correct size according to the 3D template which have been done. The material i use is the aluminium sheet in 3mm. The first approach is cutting the sheet into T-size, and marking the different parts of body. For the first approach, i am only doing the back part of the object which including the body, legs and butt. However, after the experiments, i found out the T-size is not working because the sharp corners would mostly likely break the sheet while bending it.

Second experiment showing
the rounded back part

Rounded shape tool

Curved shape tool 

Therefore, the second approach i do is to remove the sharp corners and cut it into rounded-shape for the back part instead. Then, by drawing the contour lines, it is easier to figure out which part should be tapping more and concave more. With the use of different heads of hammers and different metal tools, the body shape had been hit out.

Finishing of the body part 

The raised butt part

The last step of the second approach after tapping the body shape out is trying to pull the back part of aluminium sheet down and i tried to create the raised butt out. This time, with the change of the rounded back part, the sheet did not break or cracked. The folding of the back part has been successful and after that, use the hammer to tap inside the skin instead of outside the skin in order to create the raised butt. However, this aluminium skin is not match with the 3D template perfectly due to some problems. The problems have been found out during these two experiments which are the 3D template is too small and the tools provided in the workshop are too big, another reason is that doing the full part of the body is really difficult because the 3D template are too complicated and much shapes need to be created.