Pouring custom crayons into printed molds!

I’ve wanted to make a MakerBotted crayon mold for about as long as I’ve owned a 3D printer.  Now this is a reality thanks to Thingiverse citizen CodeCreations.  CodeCreations¹ has shared his STL’s, OpenSCAD source code, and detailed directions for making crayon molds.

CodeCreations’ method involves using a printed container into which plaster of Paris is poured.  When the plastic is removed, it leaves a plaster mold with triangular crayon “troughs.”  Then it’s a matter of melting crayons, pouring the wax into the mold, and waiting for them to cool.

Untitled by CodeCreations

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Creative Commons License Photo Credit: Lutz-R. Frank via Compfight

How amazing would it be to be able to have a balloon in any shape?  What would you want?  A piano?  A cartoon character?  A giant bouncy house?

The New Scientist just reported that a team at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and Disney Research has developed a method for taking any desired 3D shape, then using their research on how a rubber balloon stretches as it inflates, reverse engineers the deflated shape that would most closely lead to the desired inflated balloon.  Then, once they have the model for the deflated balloon, they create a mold for it using a 3D printer!  If you just can’t wait to learn more, they’re presenting their work at the Eurographics conference in Italy next month.

Thanks to Luis Rodriguez for the link!

How to: Grow a Portrait Gourd

Apparently, growing gourds in molds is an ancient 500 year old Chinese artform!  By creating a mold of a sculpture and placing that mold around a young gourd, the gourd will grow and take the shape of the mold.  While this artform was almost lost in the 1970′s, the craft was revived by Mr. Zhang Cairi and the basics have now been condensed into this instructable by Make’s Tim Anderson.

This is one of those times when I’m just surfing the ‘net and realize, “Hey, that would be PERFECT for Stephen Colbert!”  I know there are Colbert chocolate mold makers out there.  Is anyone game for creating a Colbert gourd using a 3D printed mold?

From Instructables via Make Blog!