The Penroses sent a copy of the article to Escher who wrote back to the Penroses in 1960. They eventually published their work in 1958 in the British Journal of Psychology because Lionel Penrose knew the editor. He presented it to his father who then produced more variants on the theme. Roger then developed the never-ending staircase, using more than one impossible triangle. The pair came up with the Penrose triangle, or impossible triangle. Roger Penrose was inspired by Escher's work, which he came across in 1954. M C Escher knew of the Penrose stairs, created by Lionel Penrose and his son Roger. The end-grain chipped a tiny bit and it took a bit of sanding to fix it.ĭear Light_Lab, regarding "word to the wise". Lessons learned: Never plunge when using an end-mill! I stepped down in the Z axis with each pass, but should have gone more slowly with each pass. The trickiest part was mounting a vice with parallels to keep the wood where I wanted it. You could use a Shopbot, or even a Bridgeport mill. It might have been overkill, but I couldn't find a simpler way. It's just like mowing the lawn, with an incredibly precise machine. I could have programmed something, but it was much simpler to use the manual jog in the X and Y axes to perform the facing. We have access to a DMS 5-Axis router at Pier 9, and I had taken the class earlier that day, so why not get some practice on it? I used an end-mill bit to perform a facing operation manually. I also couldn't use the Supermax drum sander, because the wood glue would ruin the sander. I couldn't use the planer in the Pier 9 Workshop, because the bit would take chunks out of the end grain, and shatter the board. I needed to plane the board, which had a 1mm thick layer of wood glue left over from the gluing procedure. Sit patiently as the lizards are cut out, keeping an eye out for fires or the cuts running off the wood. Lay out your blocks within the jig, and modify the final cut file to accommodate the number of blocks you are working with. Once the jig is aligned, and you know your laser settings, it's time to do the production run. I made this mistake and it took quite a lot of work to manually find the right orientation. Or make alignment holes so that the cuts don't fall out of alignment. Please Note: Don't move the jig, and make the lizard within the same file, so that the origin stays fixed. I used the DXF from the jig and placed a lizard within the file, and repeated the pattern. I cut a jig out of acrylic to house the 2x2in squares. 2in focus offset to get it to burn through. This is very apparent when looking at the reverse side of the assembly, as the gap is completely closed. Lasers are a high-precision tool, but have a kerf width that is shaped like an hourglass. It took a lot of trial and error to get the power and feed right. Next, I needed to cut 3 different hardwoods, each with different densities and flash points. 045in offset on the whole lizard allowed them to lock together sufficiently. The shape was MUCH tighter on one side than the other. This needed to be taken into account when testing the offset. Cut 9 with one offset, and cut another 9 to see the difference. Trial and error is the only way to do this. Tessellations are difficult, because any variation will either cause the whole thing to have slack, or as you add more, it'll lock up on you. The software is very antiquated and it took some time to figure out the right offset. I wanted a 1/2 in cutting board, and only the Coherent Metabeam 400W would cut it (pun intended). This pattern can be repeated until you have a tessellating lizard! View a video of the process here. They are based off of a repeating hexagonal shape, where a piece is taken from the inside of the hexagon, and rotated/slid to the adjacent side. Tessellation Theory: MC Escher developed tessellations after viewing a pattern in The Alhambra and using inspiration from Penrose Tiling. I encourage you to find an easier way to to this! This is a time and machine-intensive process, but with gorgeous results. I chose the lizard pattern because they had a recognizable beauty and complexity of shape that would allow me to push the limits of the end-grain cutting board using the Metabeam Laser Cutter. I've been fascinated by MC Escher tessellations for a while, and in lieu of seeing so many end-grain cutting boards being made, I decided to take it to the next level by making an end-grain MC Escher tessellated cutting board. During my residency at Pier 9, I decided to do a project using the Coherent Metabeam Laser Cutter.
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