Month: May 2020

Beadwork, Polyhedra, Tutorials

New Tutorial: Rhombic Mosaic

Posted on by beadmechanics

A new tutorial is available in my Etsy shop for the Rhombic Mosaic icosahedron! This icosahedron is Not Made From Triangles! Instead it uses peyote diamonds for a new take on this basic geometric shape!

BeadMechanics_RhombicMosaic2

This method of making an icosahedron means than you get distinct triangular faces rather than the diamond shaped faces you get if you use triangles. Here’s a comparison of two – Rhombic Mosiac is on the left and an icosahedron made from peyote triangles on the right:

BeadMechanics_RhombicMosaic3

I really like the effect this construction method gives! I started working on this idea last year with my initial Not Made From Triangles tetrahedron:

BeadMechanics_NotMadeWithTriangles2  BeadMechanics_NotMadeWithTriangles1

Since then I’ve tried a few other shapes as well – here is a Not Made From Triangles octahedron along with the triangle version:

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I really enjoy making polyhedra using this method and have a number of other shapes already planned!

The pattern in the tutorial uses five different colours for the faces of the icosahedron and has every possible combination of each five at each vertex exactly once. Both colourways are in the tutorial too!

Happy Beading!

BeadMechanics_RhombicMosaic1

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Beadwork, Polyhedra

Augmented Truncated Dodecahedron J68

Posted on by beadmechanics

A little while ago I wrote about the Beaded Johnson Solids Project set up by Diane Fitzgerald, a project to make all 92 Johnson solids out of beads. I volunteered to make number 68, the Augmented Truncated Dodecahedron. After a lot of time spent making decagons here it is!

BeadMechanics_J68_1

I’ve named the beadwork version Reflecting Pool. In total it’s made from 11 decagons, 1 pentagon, 5 squares and 25 triangles. To give a better idea of the shape here’s an animation of the polyhedron made using Stella4D Pro:

J68

Here’s the net of the beadwork shape before it the final assembly. I think it looks like a series of connected pools, which is where the name Reflecting Pool came from.

BeadMechanics_J68_Net

Before I started joining the beadwork net together I did a trial run with a paper model – fortunately my beadwork skills are better than my papercraft skills!

BeadMechanics_J68_PaperModel

I really like how the shape turned out. The decagons seem quite sensitive to even the small size variations in the beads and so ended up slightly concave rather than as flat as the ones I made initially. However, I really like how they end up looking when joined together.

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I’m tempted to make a plain truncated dodecahedron, with just decagons and triangles, however it might have to wait a while until I manage to make 12 more decagons!

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Beadwork, Polyhedra

Augmented Dodecahedron

Posted on by beadmechanics

Making polyhedra using round beads and polyhedral angle weave is my current favourite bead technique! Here’s an augmented dodecahedron made using 4mm beads:

BeadMechanics_Dodecahedron1

This is a dodecahedron with extra dodecahedra added to each face (augmentation). In theory there should be a slight gap between each neighbouring dodecahedron, but with the beadwork you can merge them together to end up with this shape.

It did require quite a lot of concentration to weave but it was still an enjoyable experiment. I’m definitely going to be trying more shapes like this!

BeadMechanics_Dodecahedron2

 

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