Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Co-design project - the First Prototype

Last time I reported my learning process of new materials; a zipper and leather. And today I want to share my trial-and-error design process of the first prototype of a laptop case. Jump to see more from the link below!

Actually I made this prototype already 2 months ago, and I have been using it everyday. I wanted to see whether leather could really prevent from producing static electricity caused by friction with plastic. And then, result was ...?


 YES, the PC case made of felt with back lining made of leather prevented producing static electricity by the friction with PC!

Here, Rovaniemi in the North Finland, is such an extremely cold place that during the winter humidity is VERY low. When you get out of your car, when you touch a door, when you shake hands with somebody, you are quite often shocked by static electricity. Under this bad condition, my first prototype made of wool felt and leather has been protecting my PC from both the coldness and static electricity.

My suspicion turned to be confidence. I'm so motivated to go on to make the 2nd and 3rd prototypes. OK, let me show the process of making the 1st prototype.

I used elk leather the last time and it didn't work well. Now I've got REINDEER leather. It's thinner than the elk leather, and firm yet supple, and it has glossy, beautiful color. I thought this time it would work... but the price was twice more than the elk leather.

This time, my design is a type that one sheet of felt becomes a case by fastening a zipper sewn around the edge of the felt. Considering the thickness of the felt and reindeer leather together, this design can be the simplest to make, thus quality of work should be most beautiful. I made a pattern.

Detail of the pattern. I always write down measurements on patterns.

 I started sewing a zipper along the edge of the felt, without putting pins nor gluing them. I used the zipper bought in Rovaniemi, which will be replaced by a coil zipper with proper color later.

I cut the reindeer leather with the same pattern.

Putting handles by metal parts so that handles can be flipped over 180 degrees.

I used leather on the other side of handles to make them strong. "Using the leather on the other side" is the consistent concept of design this time.

I put 2 pieces of metal fittings for 1 joint of the handle. This is for attaching a small case for an AC adapter, memory sticks and so on.

Putting glue along side the edges of felt and leather, then sewing together.


.... sewing the leather on felt and zipper failed. I sewed them with the felt side being the top by my industrial sewing machine, so I couldn't see the leather side (the other side), and a seam on the leather side was irregular.

Moreover, the felt was stretched during being sewn,while the zipper was relaxed, so after sewing work was done, the felt became to the former state pulling the zipper. So the zipper was kind of gathered.

no good.. I unpicked the seam.

After a while of thinking, I've gotten to an idea that I could sew them all at once after gluing all of them together. And it worked!

Then the next step was solving the problem which was pointed out by Antti in the comment of this post: a slider of a zipper may scratch a PC.

One of my ideas was to put a fastening tape along a PC.
...looked terrible;)))  And it bothered me to fasten and open the tape every time I used the case.

Another idea was to put leather like this... oh no, this was also difficult to use.
I thought I could put some glue on the metal slider to cover the surface of it to be softer. ...well, is this working long enough?

Although I didn't find good idea for the problem, I decided to go on for the time being.

Now my PC is inside. Surprisingly, the slider of the fastener didn't even graze my PC when I closed the zipper: it seemed that the tension of thick surface (felt + leather) made some opening between the PC and the zipper, because my PC was thick ... so if the PC was thinner like Mac products, the slider may scratch a PC....

The case is meant to be used like this.

I made a small case with the same style. An AC adapter, memory sticks and so on can be put in.

The small case is attached to the metal fittings of the handle.

The reindeer leather is used for belts.

Inside is like this. It doesn't have pockets for memory sticks and so on yet.

I sewed this small case after gluing all the materials together, and you can see the result.

I wonder if I should use thread in the same color as the leather or in contrasting color like this.

I'm wondering if it's better to make the small case bigger, probably to be B5 size, so that it can contain many other things like pens and Post-it notes. And I'm not sure about the idea to attach the small case on the laptop case. Is it better to make them independently and put a handle to the small case as well? What do you think?

Coil zippers, sliders and color samples that I ordered from Asakusa, Japan. I will make the 2nd prototype by them. I'm looking forward to it!

These are conductive thread that I also ordered from Japan. It’s a thread being able to conduct electricity, which can discharge static electricity if you touch with condition of being electrified. Let's see how I can use it.

This time I've tried many kinds of glue. My favorite is "Maitoliima", milky glue. I will use it for other purpose, too, so I ordered 5 liters!

Please look forward to the next post!

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