WEEK 12

3D MOLDING AND CASTING


Assignment:
Design a 3D mould, machine it, and cast parts from it.

What I used for this assignment
Machine:
- Roland monoFab SRM-20, to mill the Machinable Wax

Material:
- Machinable Wax
- Silicon Rubber RTV/HE, from Glorex
- polyvinyl alcohol, Polyester Resin

Softwares:
- Rhino3D, 3D design software
- MODELA Player 4, CAM software that calculates and displays the cutting tool path from 3D STL file
Here are the output files for this assignment:
Week 12 STL file


DETAILS

Design a mold
and cut it in the Wax

I decided to mold a small hull of boat
using the small CNC (Roland monoFab SRM-20)

Here is the Machinable Wax piece
in which I will do my mold

Using the software Modela Player 4
coming with the Roland monoFab

Compiling the Roughing job
which is the first milling job

Here is the preview
and the positioning of X/Y Zero and Z Zero

Milling in progress
using a 4mm Square milling bit

Milling finished

Here is the result of Roughing

Configuring the Finishing
using a 1,5mm Ball milling bit

And here is final result
great machin this Roland!


Doing the Mold and Casting the Hull

Doing the mold with Silicon Rubber
RTV/HE (same as used previously for the recast job, see extra below)

Silicon Rubber in place
waiting for 1 day to harden

Here is the mold in Silicon Rubber

Casting of the hull done, waiting ...

And here is the final "mini Hull" :-)


Extra Credit : (Re)casting from an existing object

As I was not able to go to Woma FabLab the week of the assignment,
I decided to do a mold from an existing object, and (re)cast the object

Doing a mold
from an existing object

I took a Chess piece, the white queen,
and I did a mold of the piece using some Silicon Rubber

Here is the Chess piece
that we will duplicate

The piece is brushed with polyvinyl alcohol
so that the Silicon will not stick or mess the piece of wood

Putting the piece in a tube
in which we will do the mold

Here is the Silicon Rubber used
named RTV/HE

Mixing the Silicon Rubber

Weighing the Silicon Rubber

Mixing it with the good quantity of hardener

Casting the Silicon Rubber inside the tube

And waiting for 1 day
so that the mold can harden

Mold is taking out from the tube
it is solid now

The bottom is clean
we can see the bottom of the wooden piece

Taking the Chess piece out of the Mold

Using a cutter to open the mold


(re)Casting the Chess piece in Resin

Using polyester resin
to recast the piece

Closing the mold
using scotch

Doing the mix of Polyester Resin with the Hardener (2%)

Casting the piece

Top surface is plan

And here is the new piece ... a crystal queen!