This is fascinating!! Ive been creating some silicon molds using 3D prints- and the process is pretty similar! If, like me, you struggle with tiny 3D print lines, I'd suggest painting the mold with some smoothon XTC-3D! It also seals the mold if you're using a material that might bleed/might receive bleed from the plastic
Sounds like exactly what I was looking for. Initially I wanted to make a positive and create a silicone mold for some mugs, but Ill give making the molds directly a try. Btw if you use a resin printer for the mold pieces then you can probably reduce the clean up time alot.
I saw you on Joel's video and I HAD to see the results of mixing 3D printing with ceramics.... Using cornflower to keep it from sticking..... I should try that again with my attempts at concrete molds
I have an electric kiln in our garage that, *ahem*, I still haven't used due to needing to amass some of the supplies I need. I really hope that someday, I can use this to combine my love of 3D-printing with a newfound hobby in ceramics. 😊 Awesome video.
If EVER I have heard a sign from the universe that you should Do The Thing, it's already having a kiln in your garage. 😂 You know what you gotta do now! Fortunately, this technique ain't going nowhere, so it'll be ready when you are. And I'll be looking forward to seeing the results!!
Excellent Allie. I have spent a lifetime of work making mouldings of metal and plastics and never before considered ceramics - and now I really want to try some! Jolly well done @KatzCreates
Very cool development!! I’d be very curious to see how printing nylon would affect the water absorption time. Nylon is hard to print with, but it pulls moisture like a sponge
That's a great question! I'm honestly not sure what the absorption rate of nylon is, though I'm admittedly skeptical that it's anywhere close to plaster. 😅 I'd love to hear the results though if someone were to try it! 😁
This is really cool. I had a couple ideas while watching that may (or may not - I know very little about ceramics/working with clay) be helpful. Firstly, if you want to create molds that are going to be reused, it could be helpful to spend some time on post processing the mold itself, and smooth the layer lines (or even add something like a gel coat) in order to reduce the amount of time you have to spend cleaning up the mold lines. There are versions of PLA (such as cosPLA from Polymaker) that are specifically designed for easy sanding. ABS is also very sandable, if you have a printer that can reliably print it. Second, if you used a higher temperature plastic than PLA, you could potentially put the mold in a hotter space to speed up the drying process, though that may cause issues with the center drying too fast while the clay that’s pressed against the plastic is still too wet? As I said, I know virtually nothing about ceramics. Finally, for the molds, could you have another mold section that makes up the base, so you can press everything together at once? I don’t know if that would be useful, but I can imagine that if I were working with this process, I would be worried about ruining the entire piece while attempting to attach the base.
Hi there! 😊 I'm pretty sure I've got answers to your ponderings and I'll do my best to address them all! Smoothing out the layer lines in the clay really is an extremely trivial thing that takes very little time, and what doesn't get smoothed will disappear in the glaze when you do the final firing. Sanding or otherwise finishing the interior of the printed mould would undoubtedly take LOADS more time, even with something easily sandable. The more complex internal shapes would be an actual nightmare to sand! 😅 It takes less time to sponge away layer lines from clay. You're right that putting the mould somewhere warmer to dry would probably dry it faster, however, since the plastic is unlikely to hold the heat evenly, there's a very high chance of uneven drying, which can cause major cracks due to thermal expansion. Sadly, patience is better in this case! As far as a mould for the base, I reckon this could potentially work for very wide mouthed pieces, but otherwise you close up an entry for air flow and working (if you need to get inside to smooth bits before attaching a base, for example. Attaching the base by hand isn't too difficult, and a good cutter helps a lot with that bit! 😊 I hope this helps! I have done by best to account for most things, but of course I could have missed something, so I appreciate the questions!
Thanks for sharing this! I recently just purchased a 3-in-1 3D printer/laser cutter/CNC, and I can’t wait to try different techniques in my pottery practice! My 3D modeling skills need a bit of brushing up. :)
Very neat. Next step? 3d print to clay, to make a mould for casting metal to injection mould plastic. Circular economy! 😂 Seriously though, excellent work!
I'm pretty new to ceramics and had been considering trying to do something like this but had no idea where to begin. Thanks for making this video - turns out I was way overthinking it!
Thank you for sharing this! 🥰 I know ceramics can seem really scary and overwhelming, so this was exactly what I was hoping to achieve with this video and technique. I just wanted to help give folks an avenue to give it a try! 😊
At the 9:08 stage - would you consider using a balloon - e.g. a volleyball-bladder - to push the shape into all the crevices, even in places that your fingers may not be able to reach? After use, it can be deflated, of course, to be extracted out of the smallest of openings... Rad tee-shirt, btw :)
Hmmm, that's a good question! I suspect it wouldn't be strong enough to really push the clay into the grooves, but if it was done with an air pump and stronger balloon material, it might work! If you give it a try, please let me know how it goes! 😀
Great video! For the fluted vase would it be worth printing a small section of the male mould (inside)? If you had one or two of the ribs, and possibly indexing slots top & bottom to more easily form the slab? That might make it a bit less tedious. Maybe artifically smaller radius and taller to avoid tearing the valley? Also, for drying, you could make a shield for the leading edge so the hair dryer wouldn't be too uneven... that would probably be easier than incorporating air channels for drying from the mould side. A couple speed clamps might also make it easier while working on the two quarter sections.
After watching this, I wonder if a person can print a slip mold using foaming pla. But design the mold that had internal channels for a forced air flow source over the molds internal walls to promote drying. I suppose that the question really is, is foaming PLA porous enough to allow the water to dry out to slip cast with (my guess is much slower than plaster). Lastly, does the rough texture created by the foaming walls cause negative results i.e. too much surface area for the clay to hold on to?
I'm not actually sure if foaming PLA is actually porous in a way that would be useful for this sort of thing. Plaster actively draws water out of the clay, and I don't think foaming PLA would function in the same way. That said, I did not try this, so it is potentially worth experimenting with! If you do, I'd love to hear what your findings are!
So cool! Thank you for taking the time to make this video ( I do realize you didn’t make it just for me)! My little brain is flipping out. So many projects!!
Thank you! 😀 I made it for everyone who might benefit from a bit of mind blowing and inspiration, so that definitely includes you! 😄 I'm so glad you like it!
I'm glad you de-costumed and I instantly took you more seriously when I saw the apron (I wear one in my shop too (I love the front pockets!)) and you CLEARLY know WTF about a ton of technical things. Bravo Katz! Liked and subscribed, duh! P.S. Great graphics and video editing!
My-Intrusive-Thoughts-Won Comment: You should grow a goatee, so you can be Joe T with the goatee. Okay I said it. Maybe my brain will leave me alone for awhile.
I am a 3d printer who just got into resin and wanted to mess with cermics and clay to try new things. My goal was work with clay and 3d scan it with new gen 3d scanners then get basic shapes and designs then edit them of all things with VR scuplting program so I can make it 4 feet talk and do find details and zoom back out and see it at 100% size. But after thought was molds but I was thinking do silcone or palster molds of dyes made with printers. This has me wanting to play with making cuts, containers like custom toothrbrush holder etc etc using the high detail resin printer. Like I am een taking a cermics class to play with it and learn more about clay and cermics at my locla commuinity college and honeslty gonna be running ideas like making molds for some my projects in that class. I met professor before selling 3d prints at school art sales, so I think he be down as long as I still do the required stuff for the class. But I really like this video. My only issue would be print lines, but again I got resin printer or will in July in time for fall semester and I can do 12k resolution molds just not sure how much detail the clay can keep when its fired, that will be trial and error lol.
@@katzcreates Yeah I am gonna have fun with this just starting a intro to cermics class and professor seems excuted to, we get two indvudual projects for a grade, and part the class sylbus is learning to use slab roller to make plates and things so I I am just kind taking that one step further with 3d molds :P But yeah should be fun semester, especially since i know NOTHING about clay. But I high functioning autistic, managed to get to 38 before knowing it, knew I was "weird" but not why. But yeah I love learning new things, and I really can't wait to see combing my printers with cermics goes. Heck I get two into it I take next cermics class, and look at my next stupid expensive buy being one those 1200 buck electric kilns they sell online lol. But this all started with me going "I want 920 buck 3d scanner, hmm what would coolest thing to scan? CLAY, hmm I know nothing I take cermics in fall! Ok now what else can I do..." And boomb this video was first thing I found when googling cermics and clay molds to see if that was a thing lol Also might look into slip clastying to but if I can't do advanced shapes probally not. Like that is what I was expecting to make a dye with printer have to get lines out of it, and cast it in plaster or silicone didn't realize could skip a step and just print the molds lol Oh yeah sorry I get excited when watching videos like this and make comments before I finish soon as I saw the printed molds and you putting slabs in I was like "OH I GOT TRY THIS!"
Clay is always a little bit messy, it's true. 😂 But this technique is way less messy than a lot of alternatives! You might just need to embrace the mess. 😁
I’m doing this right now for a vase design. The surface pattern ended up requiring a five side mould with a bottom mould to form the dome in the middle of the foot. The major difficulty I ran into was that 3D printers can leave you with undercuts between layer lines due to the way the nozzle generally blobs plastic down. I had a piece stick in the mould until I realized that I needed to use a soldering iron with a flat tip to smooth down any layer lines that were within 5 degrees of vertical to garantuee there were no undercuts between layer lines.
I just barely got into 3D printing in 2015 so I'm still learning a lot. Actually, I'm re-learning a lot after taking almost a decade away from art and crafting and just got my own 3D printer a few months ago. I'm re-learning the process of design and modeling in CAD and blender to make jewelry, but I hadn't really considered pottery beyond the tools I've already printed. Since I have an "art lab" near me, I've been delving back into jewelry casting using my 3D prints as a lost wax for investment casting, but they also have a kiln for use. Slab molds opens up a host of new ideas, especially since I've only been using silicone slab molds for casting dice in resin because... I'm a nerd. Sorry for the little paragraph, but I gotta ask... You couldn't possibly be the same Allie I knew from AiH?
Here's an idea. Design the mold so it has air gaps, so you can push a stream of warm air through it, drying the clay. That would require materials such as ABS which are heat resistant.
This is really cool, thanks for sharing Ali! The tips about mould making are going to be really useful for me, i'm just getting into resin mould making right now. :)
o wow, this is really cool. i want to make so many things now. thanks for this video! will you also make a video how you finish these things? how to bake and glaze?
Thank you! 😊 Unfortunately, I don't have a video planned at the moment for the rest of the process, mostly because I'm not an expert at those parts, and there are better people making videos about firing and glazing ceramics! But I love hearing there's interest in the rest of the process!
This is so interesting and cool. I wonder what are the advantages of slab moulds versus slip cast moulds? Also I wonder if it would be possible to make a mould of the negative then make the slab mould in plaster instead if that makes sense, so it's still a mould for slabs but it's in plaster.
The advantage is mostly up front time cost and lack of mess, though mostly it's just an alternative for those unable or unwilling to do slip casting! You absolutely could use 3D prints to make plaster moulds for slab building, but it kinda takes away a big chunk of the advantages of this method. At that point, you might as well slip cast! 😊 But of course, it's just a matter of preference!
Yes! 0.6mm nozzles speed up a print considerably because they can deposit more plastic in a single pass, but they're still small enough to be able to do 0.2mm layers with. A really good balance nozzle IMHO! 😊
This is great! I was a ceramic engineer in undergrad, and slip casting was not my friend! Is this the British corn flour=cornstarch, or corn flour like we'd have in the US that's distinct?
Cornstarch! 😁 Not the gritty stuff, but the really fine white stuff! And I agree, slip casting is a challenging beast! I liked this as an alternative and I hope you find it as useful as I did! 🥰
Wow you're awesome! Wondering if you have a preferred process to make your keys for the mold. I have seen a few videos on just this and was wondering if you did a new process or just had an adapted method and maybe reference for that. Going to try a collaboration with my ceramic wizard wife. Thanks!
No preferred method as of yet, in fact, I think I need a better one! I found my keys to be a little meh (either too tight or too loose) so I feel like that part of the model could definitely be better. And a collab on this sounds perfect! :D I hope I can see what you come up with!
@@katzcreates Will share if we have a successful part! I found this one pin video: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-xog9YlMt9UU.htmlsi=xhL9sHMdr_7CmI90
The type of clay will have an effect, in the same way that different kinds of clay are better suited for different building methods! I feel like a heavily grogged clay may be a bit difficult, but on the other hand, porcelain can be quite delicate and cracks more easily on drying. A smooth stoneware is a good place to start!
@katzcreates or maybe even a more hygroscopic filament like petg pr even nylon! Ofc this may decrease the life of the mold, but would be interesting to try!
Nice! You can also use your mold pieces as positives and cast them out of plaster. Once you've demolded the plaster pieces, you can use them for slip casting. I boil my mold pieces to release the plastic from the plaster - a bit messy but it works out. Your method is faster but harder to make the castings. Mine takes longer and is really confusing during the modeling (you're designing molds for molds), but the castings are really simple. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-JaptF1CdfyY.html
Didn't know there's only one ceramic person we're all supposed to follow. Guess there's no point in ever following other RU-vidrs for any content because everything is old and derivative. Let me unfollow Diresta, This Old Tony and Mathias Wandel because all wood and tool techniques were discovered thousands of years ago.
Unless I am mistaken, the technique that Hammerly Ceramics uses is one that creates a mould shape with 3D printing to use for making a master mould from silicone, which is then used to create a plaster mould to be used for slip casting. The technique I'm showing in this video also uses 3D printing to create a mould shape, but doesn't involve post processing the mould, silicone, or plaster, and isn't meant for slip casting at all. It's explicitly for slab built ceramics, a method that is quite drastically different from slip casting. Unless HC also developed a technique for making forms for slab building the works in the same way this does, I'm not sure I understand how this is a direct copy of what he's done. Both use 3D printing as a tool for augmenting ceramics, but the approaches are quite different. But, just to be clear, I am not and did not at any point claim to be the person to come up with using 3D printing for ceramics. I may not even be the first person to create 3D printed forms for slab building. However, when I could not find examples of this being done, I thought it something worth pursuing and exploring, and that's exactly what I did. Whether or not I'm the first person to do it doesn't take away from the usefulness of a resource that inspires and educates people to be creative.
Interesting idea, but it seems to me that it's a lot slower and a lot more faffing around compared to slip casting. Why not just 3d print the finished piece, or moulds for a plaster mould, then make moulds and slip cast as usual?
If you're experienced with slip casting, yea, it's slower. But for anyone not experienced with slip casting, when you factor in all the work to get to the point of having a usable plaster mould and it's finally time to cast... It's definitely not slower. It's less optimised for rapid mass production for sure, but it's a LOT less front loaded than slip casting. Regardless, it's definitely not meant to be a replacement! Just an alternative. 😊
