IT’S FINISHED!!!! I got back from my trip to London and the CNC machine has finally finished the front half of my phone! I was quite shocked as i didn’t expect it to be finished until tomorrow.

This is how it looked when i took it off the machine (after hoovering it off as it was VERY dusty. As you can see, the pegs around the edges weren’t really needed as for some reason, it didn’t cut all the way through. This was surprising as i was pretty sure i measured the material correctly and worked out the depth of the jobs right, but obviously something went wrong. This meant a lot of sanding today in order to get the edges smooth.

I then discovered that the two pieces of my phone are slightly different shapes – the one i did by hand must have been wrong. To make them fit together i had to fill the hand made section to fit the new milled one.

Next i need to sandseal the front half and prime them both to a good standard, then spray them matt black and aluminium. I have got most of the components to go into the phone, i just need to laser the buttons to release the battery cover.

I have ordered the rub down’s for the logo on the front. They should be here in the next day or so and cost me £38 for 3 foil rub downs which i thought was pretty good deal.

The CNC finally finished the back of the front section on Friday. I then thought it was going to be a simple task of flipping it over and setting the next job going. Unfortunately this wasn’t the case…due to another one of my stupid mistakes! In my rush to get onto the machine in the first place, i had stuck 3 pieces of MDF together, however they weren’t square to each other. This meant that  when i flipped the material over to mill the other side, my zero point was in the wrong place. In order to get the job starting from the right point i set it cutting out the centre rectangle for the screen; this way i could see how far out the material was and then move it. The first time to job ran it was 6mm out on one side! It took me over an hour this morning to finally get it in the right place – i think i pulled some muscles..the wood is really heavy and awkward!!

It is finally going now, and the first stage should be done by mid day tomorrow; I predict to be on the machine until Friday.

Well, i finally got on the CNC machine tuesday morning which was great! The roughing was all done pretty quickly, although unfortunately, the CNC was turned off over night. The finishing file was posted on Wednesday morning and is still going now… a whole 48 hours later! Because of the fire the technitians are a bit worried about leaving it going overnight which is a pain because it’s taking so long and can only be running for 9 hours a day, but also completely understandable; i don’t want to be responsible for the workshop going up in flames again!!

I have now primed and sanded and filled the back half of the phone as much as i can. I am leaving it as it is until i have got the front up to a similar stage. I could spray it now, but i’m worried if i leave it on my desk once it’s sprayed, at some point something will damage it.

The components are my next task. I am laser cutting, sanding, and spraying all the little pieces to go on the phone this afternoon and monday morning.

I have been doing research into dry rub downs for the logo on the front of the phone. It looks like it’s going to be quite expensive! one company quoted me £58 for an a5 sheet which will fit 4 of the logo’s on. I need a metallic/shiny finish on it, so i think that’s why it’s costing so much.

We’ve had a fire in the workshop, meaning it is out of action until monday and the resin room is unavailable until september, which could mean disaster for my next project!

It has affected this project in the following ways:

1. It’s very discrupting! It means i am out of the workshop and have nothing much to do on this project until monday which means 3 more days i am behind so it’s now coming up to 3 weeks behind…

2. I had left excaliber working out my drawings to CNC overnight. I have been having a lot of problems with it as it is a really tempremental piece of software. It crashes for no reason and also finds any excuse it can not to do something.

The last 2 days i have been working on excaliber trying to get it to create a tool path to cut out my model. I managed to get both the roughing passes done (although one is now stuck on a workshop computer until i can get in there and save it to my memory stick), and also start the finishing tool paths. This is where i was having problems. Excaliber seemed to think there was something wrong with the drawing when it got to a certain point, although myself and Ed could find no reason for this. We managed to force it past this point and thought we were getting somewhere, when i decided to leave it overnight and the power died because of the fire.

That is the stage i’m at now, and i’m going to be stuck here until i can try again monday morning.

Wow, rhino is a very frustrating piece of software!!

I completely forgot how to use it, but had to quickly learn again if i was going to digitally model the front half of my phone. It took roughly a week and a half to get the finished drawing and i’m actually quite proud of myself for it! I did have help from Ed the technitian, but a lot of it i had to work out myself through trial and error. It’s incredibly frustrating when something doesn’t work, but very rewarding when you finally get it right!

The image below is the shaded view of the final phone. In this view you can see the cutout for the screen as well as the raised edges around the phone; these are to allow space for me to lay acrylic in order to create the glossy screen finish.

From the side view you can see the curved shape of the main body which was incredibly difficult to get right, especially when i had to take into account the slight angle of all the edges.

The CNC machine can only mill things with no undercuts. This means i have to split the drawing and do each half one at a time. I will machine the front half, then turn the material over and set the back half machining.

This image shows the exterior walls i had to create to guide the mill where to cut. It will cut up to the stage where it meets a surface. Becuase i am turning the material over, it is really important the work doesn’t move, so i had to create some ‘pegs’ in order to hold it in place. These will be sanded away by hand after the machine has finished.

I now need to start work on excaliber!

Been slacking on the blog front recently! I keep telling myself it’s only been a couple of days, but I’ve just realised it’s been 10…

Anyway, I have pretty much finished the back half of the phone. I have primed and am in the process of sanding and filling to get it perfect.

I have decided to CNC the front half of my phone. This is quite possibly a rather large mistake, but I thought that the angles around the edge of the phone would look so much better if done digitally as I’m not convinced I could get them spot on by hand. The major downside to CNCing is that I have to draw a 3D model of it in Rhino. This has taken me 2 and a half very frustrating days so far, but I think I’m nearly done.

I am on work experience at Millennium FX studio’s in Chesham (www.millenniumfx.co.uk). We’re working on some dinosaurs which is pretty cool! I shall upload photo’s of the back of the phone and also images of the rhino model in the next few days.

I have finally routed the curves on the edges of the phone! I have had a lot of set backs trying to do this so it feel quite good to actually say I’ve done it, even though it was quite a small job. It was also a very dusty job, I was covered in the stuff and was very glad to be wearing a dust mask!

I am still having problems sticking the bottom of the phone onto the main body; I have tried contact adhesive (didn’t work because the edges were not smooth enough), car body filler (seemed quite strong until I tried to route it without taking into account the lip underneath which put pressure on the join and pulled it apart), and araldite (for some reason it didn’t set -  I think maybe it hadn’t mixed properly). When it came apart again this morning I was so disheartened, I just really want to back done and ready to start spraying by the end of today, I thought I was so close!

I have now drilled holes in both surfaces that I want to join and fixed them with wooden dowel and wood glue. I’m pretty sure this is a secure join because it’s a bit wonky and there was no way it was coming apart when I tried to straighten it! This means more work sanding and filling – I’m not sure it will ever look perfect though which I’m gutted about. I really don’t have time to try to do it all again though so I will make the best I can out of it.

The front section is underway now; I have cut all the pieces and jigsawed the screen out. I\’m still not 100% on how I’m going to make it though. I know that the front face will be backsprayed acrylic as this will give the high gloss finish I’m after, but I’m still unsure how I am going to make the silver ‘border’ which will surround the acrylic. I could make it all as one piece with a recess in the wood for the acrylic to sit in. I think this might be the cleanest way of doing it, however I think it will be difficult to machine all the curves and angles needed for the front section.

My research now includes information on copyright and trademarks (thank you Sarah Greene). It is clear that exceptions for copyrighted material includes educational purposes as long as it won’t be distributed and used to make money.

It has been brought to my attention that some people may be worried about potential infringements of the Blackberry Trademark. I would like to emphasise that this model is purely for educational purposes. It is part of my final year of a BA (Hons) degree in Modelmaking at the Arts University College Bournemouth. As a modelmaker, we produce models for all sorts of industries, from architecture, to animation, to film and tv, product design, and many more. We have never had any issues with recreating existing designs as they are all part of our learning process and are not used for monetary gain.

The model is made from wood, it has no function other than to look good (I hope). I will have no use for it after the project, although if Blackberry would like it, they are more than welcome to it.

This is not a commercial project, I will not be making any money from this model (it’s probably going to cost me a fair bit!). The purpose of this project is to show off my skills as a modelmaker and the images of the final piece will be displayed in my portfolio where it will be made clear this was not a live brief and I chose to do it for my own reasons.

If anyone has any concerns, please don’t hesitate to contact me direct; I would be pleased to answer any questions.

I have decided today that this week is going to be different. It didn’t get off to a good start as I was ill yesterday, but from today I’m going to do my best to do everything right. So far this morning it has all gone well, apart from catching my thumb between my work and the handle of a saw…

I have cut down the bottom section of the phone and filed and sanded it into the right shape. It’s actually looking pretty good now it almost resembles a phone! There is going to be a lot of filler needed though, the bottom section is slightly too narrow to fit the main body so once I have glued it in place I will have to fill down the sides.

I attempted to stick the bottom to the main body, but for some reason it didn’t work. That’s quite frustrating as it puts me back another day; I really wanted to get it all routed today and get a good start on the front section.

I have decided to move onto working out the front while the glue is drying. I need to start with a main box for the body, similar to how I did the back, however I need to cut out a large square for the screen. I also need to angle the edges smoothly so I will be able to heat bend chemi wood or acrylic round it to create the silver edging.