FUSION AND PLASMA CUTTING // 14.2.22
During this lesson we were tasked with creating a net in fusion for a metal box that we would later plasma cut out of a metal sheet.
Here’s a video showing similarly how our box nets will be plasma cut out of the metal sheet:
The first stage of the design was making a ‘base’ square in fusion which then had two walls on opposite sides extruded and then made further edges to those walls to fold in around the other sides of the box leaving a slight space in between them.
Then a further two walls are made on the last two sides to completely cover the rest of the metal box.
BOX NET
This here is the net for the box where each of the lines shown on the design are where the net is bent to create the physical box shape. The circles on each corner are also there to give the plasma cutter more room to cut and to make sure the box securely folds together rather than having the walls rub against each other and not fit correctly.
FUSION RENDER
This is the fusion render of the final box showing how the pieces fold in on one another and how the circles in the corners allow for a much easier time when it comes to bending the sheet into the box shape.
FINAL BOX
In comparison to the fusion model it does have some issues, the first being that some of the edges are burnt which is quite hard to avoid when plasma cutting but can be reduced by cleaning or sanding.
Another issue with this process is that the process used for getting the desired line bends isn’t done by a machine when judging where to bend the metal, to be more specific there is human error in slightly misjudging where the bend will be by a couple millimetres. In one of these two processes we used something similar to a Press Break which is very similar to the Cornice Break as shown in the video below.
The other process involved the use of a wooden block being inserted into the half bent box and using a mallet to touch up the other walls and bend them around the wooden block itself and then you are left with the finished product.
REFLECTION
In terms of overall improvements at the end of the process I later decided to try sanding down some of the visible burnt parts of the metal as well as the sharp edges of the box. If I were to do this project again I would like to design the box to potentially have some sort of lid, whether that involves simply creating a sliding feature on the top of the box where there is a spare plate that runs through slits on some further extruded walls. Perhaps even adding a hinge joint that can be connected with rivets and simply change the plasma cutter file to create holes for the rivets too. In general though I was surprised but interested as to how many new tools we used in fusion e.g flange tool, to create something that I originally thought was quite simple.