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Here I will describe my experiences with the creating a laser cut mould and cooking some biomaterials.
Kitchenware: pot, stove, stirrer, scales, mixing bowls, measuring jar.
Ingredients: vinegar, glycerin, gelatin, corn starch, used coffee grinds.
Tools: laser cutter, 2D design software
Materials: 3mm acrylic sheet
Autocad was used to design a 3D object (a reindeer) made from 2D parts.
Using an online image as reference, I drew the 4 pieces that make the reindeer: body, 2 sets of legs, antlers and ears. I used Autocad to do this. I exported a .dxf file.
Laser cut the design
Using a laser cutter I cut my design. The cut out pieces will be my 3D object for the coming assignment, the remains, my mould. I cut it in 2 different sizes. My goal is to obtain replicas of the 2 reindeer made from biomaterials.
Follow the recipes to cook some biomaterials.
I tried 2 different recipes to cook 2 biomaterials. One of the recipes is in the images.
Pour the biomaterials in the moulds.
Make sure there are no leaks in the laser cut moulds. I poured the mixtures in different containers to see what happens whit different thicknesses.
Take the samples out of the moulds.
The cornstarch and vinegar recipe, after a week hasn’t dried enough. I have discarded the samples.
The gelatin base recipe has been a success. The result is flexible which looks cool in 1cm thick pieces. The reindeer replicas I intended to obtain are not yet a reality. The pieces have turned out great (no retraction, only loss of thickness) but aren’t rigid enough to build the reindeer. I going to wait a few more days to see if they will harden outside of the mould.
This week I am also going to try the gelatin recipe again but adding wood dust.