-diplom_exhibition-

well, ladies and gentlemen ...i did it, i actually finshed my diplom project and set it up in the exhibition hall 30 min before the deadline. yes, i too am amazed. here are a few photos i took before sleeping for 14 hours.

-plywood_model-

according to my mental time plan, i would have had the plywood prototype finished by the beginning of this week. well, that didn't quite work out. last week was the 'werkstadt woche', which means all the tables and boxes and such were being built for the exhibition ...which means the table saw was constantly being used by different people. so, i was dumb and tried to work during the day while all the people were working. basically i got next to nothing accomplished.

on saturday i decided it was time to switch to night shifts when the workshop would be empty, or near empty. by working nights and sleeping days on saturday and sunday i was able to finish the plywood prototype, but now i still have to get the leather cut and glue that shiat...

as always it will be a close call, but i should be able to get it all done..

-sunday-

-patterns+samples-

today i worked on the leather pattern for the chair and made some sample variations for the wood finish.



from left to right the samples are: white stain, waxed and linseed oil. i think the white stain looks terrible. i like the waxed and the linseed oil, but perhaps the linseed oil is too yellowish... tomorrow the high gloss white version will be done and i can compare that to the rest.

-…no_wait,_there_are_problems-

apparently, there is still a problem with the stability of the chair. when pressure to the seat area is applied away from the wall, the mdf flexes, allowing the chair to pivot over the circled corner. when the chair pivots over that corner, the front of the chair loses contact with the floor, allowing it to move away from the wall. i hope that a slight adjustment in the form, combined with the added strength of the leather will provide enough stiffness to stop this pivoting. unfortunately, i will only know if this works after the first plywood/leather prototype is built.

-the_solution-

i made a test with the 3mm leather to see if it would take bending over multiple angles and miter joints. it held for the initial test, but i'll set it in a bent position over a longer period of time.





as discussed in the last review, i tested out the idea of hanging the chair to the wall give it the additional support it needs. this worked out quite well, but i am really not that keen on the idea of requiring a wall-mounted plate to support what the chair structually can't handle.





after testing wall mount it was clear that it could be a solution, but i still wanted an better, more fitting fix than one which required drilling holes in the wall. a simple way was to join the backrest with the seat (the point where the most instability was at this point) and see where it goes from there. at first i just joined the backrest and seat with a triangle which ran parallel to the wall. surprisingly this was all it needed to hold. however, to be more true to the form i adjusted the new triangle's position to flow into the wall more, like the backrest. this not only solved the stability of the chair, but did it in a way which doesn't require drilling, gives adequate support and improved comfort to the chair.

-mdf_prototype_complete-

for the mdf prototype i glued cloth to the joints instead of leather. obviously the cloth doesn't react in the same way the leather does, but it holds quite well and is much cheaper.





i didn't have time to make the edge connections as i would've liked before the review, so i just used zip ties to connect the edges.

after finishing the mdf prototype my greatest fear turned out to be true. the thin material doesn't have a large enough contact surface where the mitered edges meet.

last friday we also had the final review of our project before the deadline. we came to the conclusion that the best, or perhaps, most fitting way to fix the problem was to "hang" the chair onto the wall. i'm not totally happy with this idea, but i'll see what comes out of it. i need to get the final design finished so i can start on the final prototype next week. this leaves me with one week to finish the prototype and one week to finish the graphics for the exhibition.