Digital Fabrication — Better

After the “Digital Fabrication Fail” based on my self-defined Fabrication Challenge, I’ve gotten closer to a more precise solution. After an evening of frustration, while riding my bike home, I realized that an armature for the 3D sculptures would be the solution.

This is a bit tedious design-wise since I’d have to custom-design the armature for every 3D form. However, it would work — I remembered the Gift Horse Project and the armature that we built for this.

I designed a quick-and-dirty armature in Sketchup (I know, I know…) and exported the faces to Illustrator with an SVG exporter.I then laser-cut the armature pieces and put them together.

I made a few mistakes at first, but after a few tries got these three pieces to easily fit together.

However, even with accounting for the kerf, there is still a lot of play in the structure. You can’t see it in the images, but I can easily wiggle the pieces back and forth.

If I model the tolerances too tightly, then I can’t slide the inner portions of the armature together.
It is certainly an improvement, but I’m looking for something that has more precision and is still easy to assemble.