Materials And Components

Question 1

What are the 6 main properties of materials?

Answer 1

Strength - ability to withstand forces without breaking

Hardness - ability to withstand scratching, rubbing or denting

Plasticity - if a material can change shape permanently without breaking

Brittleness - brittle materials cant withstand much stretching

Toughness - opposite of brittle, absorbs impact

Durability - withstand repeated use

Question 2

What 4 factors do you need to consider when choosing materials?

Answer 2

Functional requirements
Availability
Production method
Economics

Question 3

What are the 4 different types of paper

Answer 3

Cartridge paper

Layout paper

Grid paper

Tracing paper

Question 4

What is timber

Answer 4

Chunks of solid wood from trees

Question 5

Whats a soft wood?

Answer 5

Grow in colder climates and are fast growing
Making them fairly cheap
The trees have leaves like needles, usually evergreen and have cones (eg, pine, cedar)

Question 6

What are hardwoods

Answer 6

Usually grown in warm climates and are slow growing
So more expensive than soft wood

Broad fat leaves which are usually deciduous (eg, oak, teak).

The wood tends to have a tighter grain and be denser and harder than soft wood

Question 7

What are the five sorts of board

Answer 7

Plywood - loads of layers
Blockboard - blocks in a “sandwich”
Chipboard - Wood chips squidged together 
MDF - fibres squidged together
Hardboard - like a thinner MDF

Question 8

What is plyboard

Answer 8

Very popular, used for building and general construction
Made up of layers of wood glued with their grain at 90degrees
Very string for its weight compared to wood
It can be bent which is useful for curved furniture
Can be finished with a nice veneer

Question 9

What is blockboard

Answer 9

Its as strong as plywood but its a cheap substitute when you need thicker board
Strips of softwood (usually pine) between 7mm-25 thick are glued together, side by side, and sandwiched between one or two layers of veneer (add strength and make board look nicer)

Question 10

What us chipboard

Answer 10

Cheap but weak
Produced by compressing wood particles together with glue
Usually used with a hardwood or plastic veneered surface
Used for table tops and cheap furniture

Question 11

What is MDF

Answer 11

Medium Density Fibreboard - popular and cheap

Softwood is broken down into tiny fibres, mixed with glue, heated and compressed into panels. It is denser and stronger than chipboard and doesn’t warp if it gets damp

Has Smooth faces and takes paint and other finished well

Question 12

What is hardboard

Answer 12

A cheap board. MDF but thinner and more dense

Tiny fibres compressed together with glue into panels that have one smooth side and one textured side
Sometimes used as a cheap alternative to plywood

Question 13

Whats a ferrous metal

Answer 13

Contains iron

Question 14

Whats a non ferrous metal

Answer 14

Doesn’t contain an iron

Question 15

How is metal formed

Answer 15

Extracted, crushed, refined, cast and rolled

Extracted from the earth in the form of a metal core
Ore is crushed and heated in a blast furnace until it melts
Its then refined to get rid of impurities
The molten metal is cast (poured into a mould and cooled)
Metal can be run through rollers to shape it

Question 16

What are the two main types of plastic

Answer 16

Thermoplastic

Thermosettic

Question 17

What are thermoplastics

Answer 17

Moulded by heating, and if heated again, can be remoulded

Question 18

What are thermosetting plastics

Answer 18

Once they’ve been moulded they cannot be remoulded

Question 19

Acetate

Answer 19

Hard, transparent and flexible

Used for overhead projector transparencies and packaging.