Great team building trip to the bowlplex Brighton marina last night. Well done Henri For getting the top score . Thank you Jane and Allen for footing the bill and a big thank you to Ginette Firstly for organising It And secondly Complaining about the computer crashing Getting us A free game and a free round of drinks. A great night all round Thank you to all got involved.
Clear acrylic drawer unit built for a design company to display Adidas trainers in Selfridges, London.
Laser technology has come a long way since Flash Gordon’s time, Ming the merciless and his death ray have very little on modern machines. Over the years machines have got safer, smaller and cheaper, making their processes more versatile and accessible. These acrylic tables and tray are fun examples of laser cutting. They show how accurate and neat the cut can be, it would be impossible to achieve the same results using a router, the laser has a very fine cut enabling it to do far more intricate work. The added bonus being that as it cuts through the acrylic, the heat of the laser polishes the edges. The strength of the laser can also be adjusted to engrave or etch into the acrylic, this example of Motorhead’s warpig has been etched on the back of a piece of 15mm thick acrylic, then attached to a piece of 5mm frosted black to show the etching. Any designs, patterns, names or company logos could be incorporated in our furniture designs.
Shaun
This clear acrylic cot looks great, modern and sleek, but is it practical? As a Daddy to 6 month old Lyric this design caught my eye. It looks to be standard cot type construction, two ends, two sides and a base. The sides have a series of polished routed slots for air circulation, which attach to the base. The two solid pieces the ends. This cot is probably made from 10mm thick clear acrylic. The plus side would be being able to see what your baby’s up to, without having to look over the sides of a cot. It is going to wipe clean easily, will it make baby feel secure? Will you be able to check up on baby, without getting spotted? Will baby settle with all of the distractions in the room in constant full view? I love the design but don’t think this one’s for me or my baby. The other two versions have mixed wood and acrylic together, just leaving the sides made out of acrylic. One uses laser cut patterned panels for the sides, I love the old style legs on this version, it reminds me of an old TV set. The other has routed slats as has the first example. These I would consider using myself, with the wood going all around the outside of the acrylic, framing it on both versions. It would be like watching your kid on TV, what could be better?
Shaun
It’s not every day that I get to spend with ten air hostesses! Mind you some of them were pretty old, two of the girls fly with B.O.A.C (British Overseas Airways Corporation). This later became British Airways, the rest belong to various other airlines, some old, some right up to the present day uniforms. We were given the job of building a display case to show these Sindy dolls off, our customer told us which order they would like the collection to stand in. The first problem was to find a way of attaching the dolls to the case, this needed to be done so each doll would stand at the correct height, also so the fixing point would not be too visible and spoil the display. Our customer was very happy with the outcome, more importantly though, I had a great day playing with ten trolley dolleys.
Shaun
The lines of this chair flow beautifully down to the base, the lazy curves look stunning and they are not that easy to achieve. The first time I saw this chair I was unsure of its construction method, it almost looks impossible to make. It is formed from one piece of acrylic and cleverly bent into shape, these wide curves can only be achieved using an oven, heating the whole piece of acrylic until it is pliable enough to drape over a former. Not an easy process, and certainly not guaranteed to work perfectly every time. I love the way the two pieces make the back of the chair, forming a perfect triangle when they meet. These pieces would originally have lain either side of the leg, when it was a complete sheet. As the seat is bent forward, the two pieces are bent up to meet around the back, this pulls a natural curve to the seat, making it comfortable to sit on.
Shaun
Clearly Modern
Our good friend David from plinthsandpedestals.co.uk needed a stand built to sit on top of one of his impressive pedestals, not the display cases that we usually make for him. This was a bit different, he arrived with a very heavy three cylinder crankshaft, a brilliantly engineered chunk of steel. He wanted a clear acrylic stand to display the piece, so I’m thinking easy, I can build a horizontal stand with two straight upright supports. Then he mentions he would like the piece to sit at a 30 degree angle, so off I go to the drawing board to come up with a plan of action. The two angled supports, cut from 20mm thick clear acrylic, were routed and finished by hand then glued at a 30 degree angle to the base. Job done? Not quite. The sheer weight of the metal might have broken the glue joint – a support bracket was needed. It was suggested by a colleague that I use a simple triangle but I thought it would look so much better made with a 30mm diameter rod, which makes it far more difficult to get the angles right. I was very happy with the outcome and think the finished product speaks for itself. The combination of the polished metal and acrylic looks amazing. Maybe somebody should design some furniture using both these materials – oh we have!
Shaun
Now you can play Space Invaders whilst sitting upon one of them. This sofa is designed in the Bauhaus style, to look like one of the pixelated martians from the classic 80’s game. Made in black and white, this sleek piece of furniture is both fun and functional. Designed by Igor Chak, this version is mainly finished in leather, with memory foam cushions and two glass panel inserts. The attention to detail is obvious, I love the two holes that go right through the back, making the invader’s eyes. The feet also stand out for me, square hollow tubes that are fixed together offset, to give a pixel look. The whole thing looks stunning and could quite easily be made from coloured acrylic. Definitely want one of these in my games room, when I get one of those!
Shaun
Clearly Modern
It cannot fail to catch your eye, the colours look fantastic, we will definitely be looking to include a bigger range of colours including fluorescents in our acrylic furniture designs in the future. Love the triangular shapes, from my experience i’ts not the easiest of angles to machine and if they are not quite right the gaps will look awful, these tables go further than that though not only do they have the 60 degree angles of a triangle they include 45 degree mitres on all 3 sides as well, making the construction very difficult to get perfect.
From the pictures it seems they managed to do a pretty good job.
It’s not every day i’m asked to build an acrylic robot, these type of bespoke pieces are what I enjoy creating most. After many discussions with our customer, Ryan came up with a detailed plan drawing of what was required. It was then down to me to make it come to life, the difficulty was the customer required several moving parts. The triangular fingers and earrings needed to spin round, so the robot could wear different earrings or rings. The large disc on its chest spins round, this is going to have graphics of different necklaces. The children can then move all of these pieces, mixing and matching various jewels and jewellery. You can go and see our handiwork, as our robot is part of the robot invasion at Hove museum. An intergalactic exhibition including rockets, space toys, robots and ray guns of all shapes and sizes, including many rare vintage collectable items invade the museum in this space age show of robot force.
Shaun
Clearly modern