Intro to Fabrication - Week 5

Two materials

This week’s project: time for another (better) box!

Tasked with (a) using fasteners and (b) using at least two materials that are neither plywood or acrylic, I started out by grabbing some scrap natural wood from the shop that I liked the size and look of.

I also recently purchased some EVA foam for another ITP project, and planned on using that to create the compartment of this new divider box. From the get-go I knew that with so little wood to work with, I wanted the EVA foam visible from the outside even with the box shut.

For the hinge and clasp, I went over to Bruno’s and picked from their small selection. I would’ve liked smaller hinges, especially because I think the sizable screws are running pretty close to the surface of my wood planks, but I just had to roll with it.

One thing I discovered is that shaping this foam is kind of a nightmare. In the next few days I’ll need to cut a bunch of circles and other complex shapes out of the stock I have, and this smaller EVA project at least taught me I’ll need to plan for that and select my tools carefully. This project also incorporates some thin cork material I found on the junk shelf.

I guess another sub-theme of my work in Intro to Fab is microcontrollers–I sized this box to perfectly fit my Arduino Nano 33 and my Teensy 4.0.

The fasteners used to create this box include screws, nails (tiny ones on the clasp), hinge pins, wood glue, and contact cement to bond the foam to the wood.

–2/28/23