Reflection

As an industrial design student, the bowl was an eye opening and mind expanding exercise which proved to be an excellent test of skill. Looking back on the assignment there were areas which proved to be challenging, mainly, to do with the amount of patience required to ensure a quality finish.

If I were to redo this exercise I would take more care in the initial cutting out of the circle, the bowl’s initial form, from the aluminum. Trimming the aluminum to meet perfectly on the line will aid at the end of the assignment when you need to get a clean, flat and level edge. Sanding the edge of the bowl from being rough and uneven to smooth and level proved difficult. It was hard to grip the bowl properly when sanding, also an extremely time-consuming process.

One technique that I learned from doing this bowl assignment has to do with smoothing out the ‘puckering’ created when hammering the center of the circle. In the initial stages of the exercise, it is more effective to line up the radius of the bowl to the radius of the stump so that it is flush against the wood of the stump. This helps with shape retention while hammering the ‘pucker’ out flat, as the hammering can flatten out the bowl’s dome shape, but holding it the correct angle will help with reducing that flattening effect.

Considering my degree, this assignment and the entire course has been very helpful to expand my own manufacturing and design knowledge. Metal beating, as well as the form of exploration, expanded the way I can come up with product solutions.

Specific skilled learned is the way to use tools like hammers, sandbags, saddles, anvils, French rolling wheel and stumps to work a flat sheet of metal into a shape of my choosing. Whilst a somewhat crude finish, with more practice and time I can produce a model or component which will work in developing and expanding on my design which each iteration.