From November 30th through December 3rd, I worked on the final prototype for project 2---after a lot of hours, the results started to take shape. After removing the castings from the molds, I spent hours sandings and machining the plates to obtain a smooth, finished product.









Top Plate: Bamboo powder, bamboo board, epoxy/resin, and bamboo stalk
Bottom Plate: Asian plum board, white ash sawdust, epoxy/resin



Detail of bamboo board underneath varnish on top plate. This will eventually be the presentation surface
for the chef.

Below are the images from the casting process I started on Sunday. After mixing the resin and epoxy, the composition is added to 5 tablespoons of bamboo powder or white ash sawdust. The mixture is stirred constantly for five minutes and then poured into the plastic molds. The mixture takes about 16 hours to set and 36 hours to become completely solid. Natural elements of wood and organic material can be seen through the transparency of the epoxy/resin.



Bamboo stalks. Plastic molds vacuum formed from casting acrylic and polystyrene



Bamboo and white ash sawdust

I used white ash blanks and the lathe tool in the shop to create these beautiful soup bowls/sauce bowls. This was an iterative process that required me to turn blanks on both sides--once to get the concave outer surface and a second turn to hallow out the bowl.

Through the middle of November, I vacuum formed plastic sheets (polystyrene and polyethylene) over various wooden molds. I constructed these molds from my form sketches, renderings, and study models. I used the rule of thirds to determine the dimensions of the sushi plates and reviewed traditional Japanese form to justify shapes. Below are pictures of the third set of molds produced. Later, I would pour my epoxy/resin and sawdust mix into the molds.