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I wanted to see what I could pull off in the way of illusions, with fairly simple carpentry techniques. After some research, I settled on the cafe-wall illusion. With a repeating pattern of light and dark squares (yes, they are squares- all angles are 90 degrees), the illusion of bending appears.
I never think my projects are going to be interesting, so I don't take mid-project pictures. So I apologize if my intermediate steps are unclear due to lack of pictures. Feel free to drop me a line and I'll try to explain what I did in more detail.
I've entered this project to the Epilog contest, so please vote for me if you think I deserve it. As a university student, I'd probably drag it on-campus, and set it up to allow other students to use it for free/at cost for their projects, personal and professional. I know I've got a whole bunch of ideas I've been sitting on without the extra cash to burn on laser/CNC cutting; I'm sure others here do too.
I never think my projects are going to be interesting, so I don't take mid-project pictures. So I apologize if my intermediate steps are unclear due to lack of pictures. Feel free to drop me a line and I'll try to explain what I did in more detail.
I've entered this project to the Epilog contest, so please vote for me if you think I deserve it. As a university student, I'd probably drag it on-campus, and set it up to allow other students to use it for free/at cost for their projects, personal and professional. I know I've got a whole bunch of ideas I've been sitting on without the extra cash to burn on laser/CNC cutting; I'm sure others here do too.
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The basis of this pattern is rows of alternating light and dark squares, each offset by about 1/2 square from the next. The rows alternate back and forth- forward two steps, backward two steps, repeat.
Also, a key aspect is an intermediate color (in my case, grey-ish) in between the squares.
Also, a key aspect is an intermediate color (in my case, grey-ish) in between the squares.
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(pic if you want http://gyazo.com/c5e7996b4ab0e5e121521cc52947cbc1)
I tried to glue them up just to each other at first, and couldn't get them to come out straight- so I glued them down to a piece of MDF, while I was gluing them to each other.
To clamp horizontally, I clamped a straight board across the work table, and used a second board to press the new row (I only glued up one row+spacer at a time) against it.
To clamp vertically, I just used another long, straight board across the row, which I clamped down against the worktable on each end.
This worked for me, but since I could only get two clamps on vertically, the better thing to do would probably be to use a slightly curved caul (e.g. http://www.leevalley.com/US/wood/page.aspx?p=67309&cat=1,43838) to apply pressure across the whole row.
Does that answer your question?
Other possibilities are the Munker illusion (3 colors look like 4)
http://www.michaelbach.de/ot/col_Munker/index.html
and
http://www.michaelbach.de/ot/lum_white/index.html
you might also be able to make the sine illusion
http://www.michaelbach.de/ot/sze_sineIllusion/index.html
finally, the "bulging checkerboard" illusion might be possible if you could use small circles instead of the little squares (make the checkerboard, drill a hole, use maple/walnut dowels to fill)
RE the "bulging checkerboard" pattern I found here: http://www.michaelbach.de/ot/geom_KitaokaBulge/index.html
you might be able to make the illusion as pictured with a square mortising machine, but I don't own one (no way you could do all that by hand). I made a mock-up of the pattern with circles rather than squares in GIMP, and the illusion remains, although it doesn't seem as impressive.
It also seems like it only works at certain scales; try zooming in and out on the image. when it's a thumbnail, it looks great; when it's full-screen, it looks lousy.
Something to keep in mind when making chopping boards is that its important to only have end-grain showing. If you were to cut across the grain, you'd cut the wood fibres into short sections leading to small splinters coming free from the choppng board, not to mention blunting your knife. Check out the big chopping blocks at a butcher shop, although manufactured from smaller sized pieces of timber stuck together, they look like a huge square tree stump.
Chopping boards are relatively easy to make in the same fasion a your coffee table (which looks great btw) where you start with square timber and simply cut slices off it at whatever thickness you want your board / table. If I was going to make this coffee table, and I think I will cos its a great effect, thats probably how I'll go about it.
I loved your concernes about sharp knives, optical illusions and fingers! lol.
What if:
You rip the 3 maple boards and 3 walnut boards to width.
Then cut 5 strips of ash.
Glue the wood going maple, ash, walnut, ash, maple, ash, walnut, ash, maple, ash, walnut.
Cut the glued boards into long strips on the radial arm saw.
put the freshly cut wood on a piece of mdf and stagger them.
Then put strips of ash between each piece of wood.
Would that work or am I going crazy.
Did you get a steel bar from and particular source? Presumably you just need something that fits snugly in the groves on your table saw.
There are plenty of online retailers who sell steel stock; you probably want cold-rolled steel (I used stainless, but mild steel is probably also OK). I got mine from smallparts.com through amazon, if I recall correctly. onlinemetals.com is also a good source.
Is it a structural thing or is it part of the optical illusion, or just an aesthetic preference? Thanks!
"The café wall illusion is a geometrical-optical illusion in which the parallel straight dividing lines between staggered rows with alternating black and white "bricks" appear to be sloped. [...] In the construction of the optical illusion often each "brick" is surrounded by a layer of "mortar" intermediate between the dark and light colours of the "bricks"."