[TheForge] Re: 3d printing zcorp

[Mike Spencer]

> while nothing on the web site indicates it i think it is safe to
> assume that the moulds and cores made in this way are one time use
> only.

Well, I think the image showing a big hammer and a crack in the mold
"indicates" it. 

The says the mold material is "a plaster-ceramic composite", which
doesn't sound very durable, given how it's made.  I gather this is
rapidly evolving technology. (I watched the prototype system, running
on a modified dot matrix printer with clever hardware hacks hanging
all over it, "print" a finished object in steel granules and glue at
MIT 10 or 12 years ago.)  So you might want to experiment yourself
with the composition of the mold material.  Or even print your
finished objects, sinter them and fill the interstices by capillarity
with a lower melting point metal.

In any case, designing a mold and core for a complex shape that had
sufficient separate parts that you could disassemble the mold from
around the casting would be a major exercise in itself, let alone
trying to make the result actually hold molten metal.

Prof. Sam Allen at MIT (who is a keen hobby blacksmith and was for a
while on TheForge) is one of the inventors of this tech.  If you're
really hot on this, you might contact him to see if some back-channel
advice can be had.

    http://www-dmse.mit.edu/faculty/faculty/smallen/
    http://web.mit.edu/tdp/www/index.html           (enable javascript)


- Mike

-- 
Michael Spencer                  Nova Scotia, Canada       .~. 
                                                           /V\ 
mspencer at tallships.ca                                     /( )\
http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/                        ^^-^^

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