Hey all, I was just wondering if there is anyone on hand to give direction in CAD/Fusion if I was to join you? I’m trying to get a new project up and running. I’m a potter who is trying to 3d print something to then make a mould.
Thanks for your time,
Amar
Hi Amar,
I did something similar before Christmas to make a mould and then cast ceramic baubles (https://www.instagram.com/p/DRurXlzDX15/ shows our process). I found a playlist of tutorials for fusion on youtube (Learn Autodesk Fusion 360 in 30 Days for Complete Beginners - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrZ2zKOtC_-C4rWfapgngoe9o2-ng8ZBr) that helps you learn the concepts by doing, and I worked through enough of the videos to get to a point where I felt I knew enough to work out how to make the shape I had in my head, and then modelled it in fusion.
I’m probably not the best person to help with fusion stuff as I’ve only used it for that one project so far, but happy to discuss your project in general if you’d like!
Kat
Thank you so much for your help, Kat — and apologies for my late reply. I’ll be more patient with the process for those YouTube videos.
I’d really appreciate your insight, actually. I’m trying to design a cocktail jigger that will have very specific measurement marks in side and on either side, so it needs to be very precise and naturally account for shrinkage in porcelain once I’ve made a mould from my 3D-printed design.
I can just about wrap my head around the very basics of creating a design, but making it accurate to the millimetre — and then altering the form without losing that millimetre precision — is where I’m getting stuck.
Hi Amar,
Ah yes, the shrinkage fun and games. Do you know the shrinkage % for the porcelain you plan to use, and for the temperature/cone it’ll be fired at? It can be hard to guarantee the exact shrinkage that will occur (it can depend on a lot of different factors), but if you can work out what the shrinkage % is (sometimes provided on technical data sheets for the slip/clay, and you can do a test using the exact porcelain, temp/cone, and glaze you plan to use for the final product, and measure it that way too) then you can do the maths to make sure the mould model is scaled up so that when it shrinks by that % it’ll be the size you want it to be. But again, there’s no guarantee it’ll be exactly that, as shrinkage can vary across different firings, different glaze types etc.
Fusion is good for dimensional accuracy in modelling, so you will be able to model it to the exact dimensions you want the model to be.
How many of the cocktail jiggers are you looking to make? If it’s just one it may be that, once you have worked out the theoretical shrinkage rate, you do the modelling etc to that, and then you may just have to make more than one until one comes out where the shrinkage is spot on.