Final Presense Wallets

Heres the final Presense Wallets displayed at the 2008 Grays School of Art Degree Show.

Moulds!

I never thought would learn so much from developing this product. The amount of moulds I have used seems to be endless. It seems such a waste of material when I look at it all but I suppose they help produce all of these prototypes...

Orange presense Wallet

Heres another wallet I got sewn up recently. I really like the powerful orange colour on the wallet. I think it gives the wallet a nice modern twist.

.....whilsts the wallets are being sewn

Spiked press

Heres the result of a leather press I recently did with spikes. Its worked really nicely. I was not really expecting the form to be so exact to the mould. I think this will definatly be in one of my final pieces.

Rubber/ Leather wallet

I have been trying to bond leather and silicone together to see if I get a wallet which has slightly more sticky ridges to it...so it grips the leg a bit better. The leather ones are ok but I would like a better 'presence'.
This attempt didnt work too well...only got a week left until the deadline but im hoping I can sort something out early next week!

The first 'Presense' Wallet

Heres a picture of the first presense wallet. Sown up by Ahmet Okur a tailoring expert in Aberdeen. Im really happy with the result. Perfect job son....

New Leather has arrived

Iv been firing out several leather moulds now..some have reacted with the silicone.. I think from the wax that was on the leather..easy to sort..Iv also got some new leather in..see pic about..its split leather meaning its from the lower half of the cow..problem is its very tough and mite be hard to press so not sure as yet if its a winner or not.

Final idea prototypes being to come together

I think that my wallet will be made out of leather just to give it that classic feel. The only problem with this is getting the leather to keep shape so I put silicone on some of my leather moulds to see if it would help support the rib pattern. It seems to have worked quite well and im happy with using something like this in my final piece.

Possible Rubber technique

By casting a poly urethane mixture onto leather I manage to achieve a leather finish. Im pretty impressed with the result it made, the left one especially. The right one was swede leather which stuck to the rubber too much.

Materials

The past week I have been looking at different materials that I could use for my final design. Pressing leather into the shape of one of my prototype models was the main thing i wanted to achieve. I havn't quite got the mould right yet as it jams the leather and does not press right down.

.....Look at him go!

This is about as fast as the project is going just now..its not pretty. The CNC machine seems to be stuck in a coma most of the time..However im using the time to design and produce other items for my final display

Second Wallet skin

The second mould for the wallet has been made, A slightly thinned down version that the last mammoth attempt. From doing these two moulds I have learnt a lot about the ways in which moulding works and techniques to improve on later moulds, this will be valuable for the final product.

Alterations to Wallet skin

After the mark2 wallet skin was produced I looked over it to try and faults with my mould.

For a start it was way too thick so I have routed out 4mm off the surface join of the mould.

Also when folded the centre creased so I have had to cut out a groove to all it.

Iv also rounded off the corners so that the silicone is stronger. Lets hope mark 3 is better.

Result of mould

Heres the result of the mould I produced, I am happen with some aspects of it but there are some problems that need addressing. The main one being the size, Iv made the mould too deep so its silicone is too thick and chunky..

Im going to need to figure out if I can make the skin with a mould that is already bent rather that pouring into a flat mould. This will help with keeping the wallet in shape and folded rather than springing back.

Mould finished

Just finished making my mould today for a 'Presence skin' which I have been developing for the past while. I should be ready to pour in the poly urethane now and see if this mould works. I designed it myself and haven't really shown the plans to anyone so hopefully I thought it out right!

Materials testing

The past week I have been looking at materials to use in the wallet, I have looked at various grades of shore hardness within silicone and poly urethane ranges and also been looking at different types of leather.

I'm really interested in getting a look at some tanned fish skin close up but am struggling to find any place with it.

I think for part of my final product it will be made out of poly urethane to get a smooth and tough edge to the product. Iv just received my order from 'mouldlife' with a shore 50 2kg tub and done a few tests and when cured seems to be the right stuff.

Skin made

For the past while I have been checking out different moulding techniques and trying some out to get familiar with them. Just finished making a skin for a wallet, first attempt so its a bit dodgy but its the first time I have injection moulded and i was impressed with the result.

Current selection of moulds

Currently in the process of looking at the moulds that I created and figuring out what the best textures are.

The making of moulds

Just thought I would 'blog' how I am making these textures. I have made a quick 1 min video showing the main processes I am going through to the finished product.

Death of a mould

The past two weeks have gone slow and have been quite annoying. Firstly due to the fact my mould never set..perhaps due to the out of date urethane used?!... Secondly after working many hours on rhino creating ergonomic texture samples, the CNC machine crashed making it unusable for some time. So am currently looking over bag theft ideas to see if I can develop any a bit further.

Presence Wallet

Heres something I have knocked up on Rhino tonight combining a few of my past ideas and developments. It may lead somewhere, it may not...

Ergo Wallet

Along with doing texture work, half manually and half on the CNC machine, I have been looking at making pocket objects fit better to the pocket. So, I have crafted curves in the test pieces to see if more added surface area gives a better presence. I'm also including texture in some of these so when they are moved they can be instantly felt.

3D textures

A couple of the textures I have been making the past few days.

I will be carrying out a few more experiments in this area before

perhaps moving on to another topic.

New (to me) town/ 'pub' bike

Just finished building a purpose built 'pub' bike for the city of bike theives. Its an old marin frame with a seized in seat post..so the seat cant get nicked for a start, single speed with a shiny half-link chain...soon to get rusty hopefully, old battered security skewers for the wheels and finished off with some dominic wilcox rusty stickers....In the look out for an old brown brooks saddle aswell to give it that perhaps age of classic design.

Iv found it interesting to look at the desire for bikes around cities and how people customise them in a bad way to stop them looking attractive. This is the first time when making a bike I tried to increase the amount of rust and damage to the paint as possible.

Presence

Iv recently been looking at the presence of objects that we carry in our pockets, Mobiles / Cell phones, keys, wallets and mp3 players. With technology pushing out smaller objects we are loosing the feeling of phones and music players in our pockets making us feel more vulnerable in crowded places. Just now I am looking into surface textures to see if I can connect personal objects with the body in a better way.

Product Design Interim Exhibition 08

Heres a small movie I just made up of our recent Interim Exhibition. Any comments, criticism welcome.

4th year Interim Exhibition

Heres a couple of shots of the Exhibition that we have created in Grays School of Art. I had various parts of my project shown on my wall including a diagram of my project start to present. Il pop a video up soon of the process of creating the exhibition and previews.