I got to use two of my favorite high-tech tools for this piece: The Origin and the Form 2 printer. The 3D object is a print of Julia Vase #002 - Flow by virtox - Thingiverse which the Form 2 can print in ceramic/polymer material directly. The material is bisque fired in a kiln to 1050C, which burns away all of the polymer, and the ceramic particles stick together. I glazed it with Amaco High Fire Glaze - Baby Blue, Pint | BLICK Art Materials and fired to 1250C. This whole process works fairly well, but the vase is thin-walled, and some cracking is inevitable near the foot. Instead of ignoring the tiny cracks, I decided to cover them up with a wooden foot that would enclose the bottom of the vase. I used the
https://www.shapertools.com/ Origin to cut a pocket into bloodwood, which would match the bottom of the vase. I then cut around the pocket to free the piece from the stock. I used double-stick tape (Nitto / Permacel) to hold the small bloodwood stock down to the spoilboard, on which there was a bunch of Shaper tape. Born out of necessity, I ended up preferring the visual touch that the wood and ceramic deliver together.
This is beautiful work, Ben. At the risk of turning this into a Shaper post, I thought that shaper tape had to be at the same plane as the work piece. You can put the tape on a spoiler board below the work piece?
Thanks! Yes, having an offset between the plane of the work piece and plane of the Shaper tape works fine as long as the planes are parallel and rigid. It’s very handy for small, expensive hardwood pieces. This setup typically requires some shims to be made (or adjusted) that match the thickness of the stock so that the router doesn’t topple for really small pieces.
Very interesting work !!! I would love to one day find the funds to buy and maintain a Form 2 for personal use, the ceramic and other possibilities like making masters for aluminium casting or molds for injection molding are really interesting.
Would you care to upload a picture with something in the frame to get a sense of scale ?
BTW, amazing work too on the plastic printed circuits ! Any plans on featuring your work with the Form 2 on Applied Science ?
Sure, here are a few photos for scale. The part shrinks considerably from the as-printed polymer form, and the bisque-fired form ready for glazing. There is some additional, but much less shrinkage when going from bisque to full glaze fire.
I did a general sort of video about the Form 2: 3D print your brain, timelapse, high-res microfluidics, custom colors... - YouTube
Lovely work!
Very cool Ben! I see you printed directly on the build platform. Don’t you find a line forms around 2mm from the compression of the first few layers and that it’s quite ugly and stays with the model? I don’t see it on your model though, maybe its not as bad in ceramics?
Originally, I tried printing directly on the bed, but with ceramic, I couldn’t dislodge the part without breaking it, so I ended up using the conventional supports – they are all located on the bottom of the part so I have no “nubs” to clean or sand down on the sides. In these photos, I already removed the supports. Formlabs has added new features (mini raft) and compression compensation for printing directly on the bed, which didn’t exist when I made these.
Looks cool! I was planning to get a CNC router to work with wood. But I’m having a second thought after seeing this.
This is beautiful
These are the types of projects I love to see. Amazing work!
Ben
Can I ask you which Formlab printer you are using for these ceramic printed vases? Do you print them in open mode? Do you use Formlabs ceramic resin or have you tried other brands?
Benedikta, I’m using the Form 2 with the Formlabs ceramic resin. I’ve never tried open mode or using 3rd party resins.