For my final project, I took inspiration from industrial buildings with raw exposed steel and concrete, structural visibility, and a dystopian energy. With these themes in mind, I machined a stainless steel asymmetrical belt buckle.
This project was very challenging. To minimize cost, I tried to use materials I could find on campus which led me to change my design a couple times as I progressed. I started by milling out the inner pockets. I made two pockets so that the latch could rotate more easily around a thinner bar in the middle. For the outside shape, I machined a custom fixture to hold the buckle from the inside pocket. I programmed a custom tool path to cut the outside shape. This took three tries before I liked the final outcome.
After I finished cutting the raw shape, I spent a long time sanding and shaping the buckle to look more complete. I left some minor cuts and scratches in the raw form to look more industrial. For the latch, I had to heat it up and bend it in a vice so the metal wouldn’t crack (which it did in my first attempt).
For the leather, I wanted the stitching to look like wires or exposed piping. The leather was dyed black and punched for the belt holes and stitching. In the end, I was able to make two functional belt buckles with slightly varying designs. More of this journey on Unrulr!
