Manufacturing Complex Surfaces to Recreate the Design Intent of Legacy Artifact

Manufacturing processes and techniques have changed throughout history. When designing a product for manufacturing knowledge and availability of these processes greatly influences design even though the intent remains the same. To evaluate and compare the effects of these manufacturing processes on design two legacy artifacts were recreated using manufacturing methods that differed from the original product. These artifacts were an early 1900's sand casted infill mallet head from the Studley Tool Cabinet, and a 1950's Hydro-electric dam scroll cage at 1/80th scale created using vacuum forming. This analysis resulted in seven different pieces of finished hardware using five different manufacturing methods. Three of these processes belonged to the infill mallet, and two to the scroll cage. Using these different manufacturing methods we were able to produce similar geometries of the original design while maintaining the intent of the design.