8. week 8 (Moulding and casting)¶

Group assigment¶

In the group task, we divided into teams, and each team was assigned to explore and research the type of material they had. Silicone Rubber, learned the steps for making it, the safety measures needed, and the time required for it to be made and dried. Visit our Group Website to see more.

website link

This week I learnt about the processes of moulding and casting. I learnt what is it good for and what are the limitations. In addition, we tested different materials for casting. Finally, we created our own designs to be milled, moulded and then casted.

Moulding vs. Casting¶

Moulding is the act of creating the cavity that carries a negative or reverse impression of an original model. Moulds can be made of a rigid material, such as plaster or more commonly, a flexible material such as rubber.

Casting is the act of pouring liquid material into the cavity of a mould. After a period of time, this liquid will cure via chemical reaction or cooling. The solidified part is also known as a casting.

Why casting and moulding? We have different materials to use unlike 3D printing It is good for producing large quantities of the same thing

Limitations:

We cannot do undercuts. The precision is limited to the instrument (cutter diameter). The depth is also limited to the instrument length.

Design¶

I chose the design from Pinterest and in Illustrator I deleted the background and selected the desired shape in the SVF file

I opened the file in the Tinkercad program to adjust the sizes and angles, it must be fillte

click to download my car model

I added the design file to SRP player

We added the piece sizes and completed the options as we wanted

Machine work¶

The machine started working, but a problem occurred, which was that the Z, which is the lowering of the bit, lowered more than required and the bit was cut off