Yesterday morning I visited Otto’s Timber Joinery and Hardware in Magill, I had never been in this area. It was full of suppliers I had heard of and craft stores selling raw materials for creation.

Otto’s had a wide range of timbers for me to choose from.

I asked for the most porous wood and was told to choose the lightest timber there as it would have more air bubbles. I found the Cedar, European Maple and Poplar the best.

 

From these three colours of timber I designed the bracelet to suit…

This design was created on Revit, a program I am used to using in Architecture, it was very fun to use for something on such a small scale!

Once happy with the way it looked digitally, I exported the file as a DXF, put it in Illustrator and got it laser cut first in MDF to see if the dimensions were right and if it felt right as a bracelet.

This design did not work as it was too big for a wrist, I had to then make a new one back in Revit. I had ideas of either gluing them together as a whole or having an elastic running through the bracelet or even a clasp.

The second time using the three different timbers also didn’t work as the pieces were too thin, and reconstructing them together was too difficult as they were so small and relied on the smallest details.

Another design needs to have larger timber pieces and overlayed to create a thicker piece.