In the following days coming up to the hand-in, I went to the laser cutting workshop to produce models of the tea shrouds and tea signs.

Frosted PET Sheet (Polyethylene Terephthalate) 0.3mm

Material Testing:

Initially I had bought 0.3mm thin PET plastic to cut my patterns in to. I wanted to laser cut into a material that could be bent in to a cylindrical shape to physically model the tea shrouds/pods. However, after testing PEV, this material was not working out. It was too flimsy for some of my detailed patterns and when the plastic cooled down it would stick back together. I also considered the environmental affects on using this material in my project and I want to create a positive affect to our future.

Colourfield 270g Pale Grey Card

I eventually chose 270G Colourfield card in the shade ‘pale grey’ as it would show the detail in each pattern much more clear. The tea shrouds in person are 3 mm thick, therefore a thin paper would reflect the materiality better than a material such as acrylic or MDF.

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This material worked much better. Although some of my patterns were still too detailed which in paper was too flimsy and not shown as accurately, I made the decision to show visual variation amongst the 5 pattern panels. Three of the more complicated laser cutting works were made with a netting affect which doesn’t pierce the paper all the way through in some areas. This keeps the integrity of the pattern intact but implies that that material is cut through as two of the panels do and as indented in the original design.

The final models (1:20 in person)

Modelling the signs: I found a thick, clear acrylic panel in the laser cutting room which would have been thrown out was re-purposed and re-used to model and replicate my information signs about each tea.