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13-Molding and Casting

Assignments

Group assignment:

  • Review the safety data sheets for each of your molding and casting materials
  • Make and compare test casts with each of them
  • Compare printing vs milling molds

Individual assignment:

  • Design a mold around the process you’ll be using, produce it with a smooth surface finish that does not show the production process, and use it to cast parts.

Learning outcomes

  • Design appropriate objects within the limitations of your process
  • Demonstrate workflows used in mold design, construction and casting

Have you answered these questions?

  • Linked to the group assignment page and reflected on your individual page what you have learned
  • Reviewed the safety data sheets for each of your molding and casting materials, then made and compared test casts with each of them
  • Documented how you designed and created your 3D mold, including machine settings
  • Ensured your mold has smooth surface finish, that does not show the production process (by postprocessing if necessary)
  • Shown how you safely made your mold and cast the parts
  • Described problems and how you fixed them
  • Included your design files and ‘hero shot’ of the mold and the final object

The road map i made for this week can be accesed here

Individual Assignment

This week we were tasked with making a mold with the design of a 3d tool path.

Difference
2.5D toolpath- Straight z extrusion from a design
3D toolpath - Has to have different levels of printing.

Errors

1- First of all, I did not know about the whole 2.5d design requirement, so I made 2 of those designs

dino

2- Then, I thought we needed to print the box, or needed the box with the design(not sure why, it was a dumb thought) so my designs have the box around them as well.

both

3- Then another mistake I made was trying it out on tinkerCad. It was easy to use, but I was more familar with fusion so the design for this didn’t go too well either, so in the end it was a waste of time.

tinkercad

I loged into TinkerCad here

Actual design

With the whole 3d toolpath required, in the end, I made a spear. I cut it from halfway so it can be cut.

Then my local instructor told me its a bit too plain, so I added a few extra designs. They were slopy, but I was running out of time so I just went with it.


Last update: April 29, 2025