Ceramic 3D printing tests 03 - How?

15.06.13

Well, not exactly how, as I'm starting from the 'ground up' and there's a great deal to learn. 

But hopefully the collaboration between MIRIAD and KHIO will be the start of forming a larger community of 3D printing hackers and researchers willing to share experience and also to discuss the wider implications of 'digital making'.

The test bars fired to 950°C

KHIO is open at the weekends, so I was able to get in there first thing and unpack the first of our firings. As you can see, the results are 'interesting', the red clay 1:1:2 mixture has almost turned into a fired foam. There's obviously a lot of gas being given off, and not enough clay to bind the bar together. As there is flux (glaze material) in the Potclays powder, the 1:1:2 has held together much better. 

Both the 1:1:3 and 1:1:4 tests are similar, though I haven't tried to snap them yet. 

The next stage was to dip half of these tests in vitreous slip (recipe below) and fire them with the 1000°C test bars. I'll be able to unpack them tomorrow and see how they have fared.

Before leaving the Academy yesterday evening, we set up a new build with some more adventurous tests. And this is what they looked like this morning. Even though the pieces are completely supported by the excess material during the build, there is still a certain amount of distortion. They were printed in the Potclays 1:1:3 powder.

Trine's scan of an African vegetable looks excellent, but I didn't see the original, (or even view the stl file,) so I can't compare.

My cube tests are simply too thin, however I will fire them.

I must add that my architectural piece is designed to look warped! I have slightly re-designed this piece, altering the scale and wall thickness. I'm going to print them tomorrow and hope they are worthy of glazing.










Vitreous Slip Recipe:

These are UK ingredients, but I'm sure equivalents are obtainable in other parts of the world. I use it to make the 3D printed ceramic tests less porous and able to be glazed in the normal way. It is opaque and quite a bright white due to the high china clay content.

China Clay:  1kg
Ball Clay:     1kg
Potash Feldspar: 100gms
Zirconium Silicate (Disperzon): 100gms

It will fire to stoneware and possibly higher, though I personally haven't tried it at porcelain temperatures. It can be applied to plastic clay, though it's easier to apply to biscuit-fired ceramic. It can be stained with oxides and body stains.

04.04.08 – Evaluation

The first part of the Easter break was spent at my brother’s in Austria. Vicky and I went out for a few days to meet our new nephew Luke, who is my brother & sister-in-law’s first child. Chris is like a dog with two tails!
After what we thought was going to be a brief trip back to winter, our landing at Stanstead was delayed by snow. The rest of Easter was cold, but I did manage to get out for some good walks with Vicky and Blue.

Apart from settling back in Cumbrian life, I spent many long days writing up the Evaluation section of the thesis. It’s a demanding section, pulling together themes explored during the project and relating them to other peoples work. A lot of time was spent thinking and writing about how I allow for subjectivity in the evaluation of this project. I had originally planned to have an evaluation and a conclusion but they seem to have morphed into one. I emailed my efforts to Martin and Alison, so I’ll see what they say.

In addition to all this, I'm looking for generative software to use on the Wedgwood project (if it goes ahead). Sometimes called algorithmic geometry software it can be used to generate 'natural' forms such as bone structure or plant growth. If anyone out there can point me in the direction of Rhino compatible software I'd be very grateful.

Next week is going to be a busy one, with World of Interiors interview as soon as I get in on Tuesday, tutorial on Wednesday afternoon, Grace’s fashion show at Brick Lane in the evening. Thursday morning I have a meeting to discuss applying for a SMART award towards next year’s research fellowship.

11.01.08 - Decision time

I came down to College on Monday this week, planning to make an effective start to the term.
Everything was in place for the casting of the torus mould and I managed to cast one each day. I shouldn’t be surprised that there is so much to learn each time a new form is attempted. With the torus I had to develop a sequence whereby I could handle the heavy mould allowing for careful filling, emptying and the removal of the cast. Correct timing is crucial, the cast has to be of the correct thickness, it has to be left in the mould until it’s firm enough to be removed without it distorting etc. etc.
By Friday I had 2 perfect casts and two slightly less than perfect. Thursday’s had imploded, probably when the slip was drained from the mould. I had applied talc to the surface of the mould that may have contributed to the problem.
I had a quick chat with my supervisor, Martin Smith, about the writing that I had done over Christmas. He agreed that there should be a stronger narrative throughout the section, so that’s something I need to attend to before long.

I spent some time thinking about the rest of the practical work that I need to produce over the next couple of months. The torus form relates well to the thesis, the cylinder pieces explore perception but they don’t relate well to each other and the cylinder strongly remind me of some of Martin’s work. The mirror black glaze links the two forms but the resemblance to Martin’s work is something I need to discuss with him.
Meanwhile, I need to carefully think and design forms that relate well as a group, and can illustrate the thesis.
So the plan for this weekend is to work on the designs and reread the writing. Plus I would quite like a bit of home life!
Rhino rendering of disc 11. I plan to incorporate 'lightwire' in the groove just below the rim.

Rhino rendering of disc 12. In this one the 'lightwire' is planned to fit in the groove where the wall meets the base.

18.10.07 – The Actual and the Virtual

On arriving at College I went straight upstairs to the Darwin workshops to see how Neil had got on with the CNC milling of my torus 03 form. I felt like Christmas had arrived! It was finished and looked superb.
The difference between visualising the virtual form on Rhino 3D and having the real thing in front of me is profound and also shows up the difference between what I have carefully designed and the thrown test forms. 3D modelling software has many advantages, which include the ability to visualise a design, to create an extremely realistic render of it and to save that information to fabricate the design by various methods such as CNC milling and rapid manufacture.
On close inspection of the model various slight imperfections could be seen, there was ‘stepping’ on the curve at the centre of the form, and a slight ridge where the two halves met. Neil was as interested as any craftsman in how the tool had performed under skilled guidance regardless of the fact that he controlled the tool through the computer keyboard. The making of the form was not an automatic process; there were choices to be made in planning it as there are with traditional methods.

From there it was back down to unpack some tests from the kiln. The metallic black glaze from a recipe that Liz had given me, which I had ball milled, had come out quite differently; this time it looks very much like steel. Not the same high ‘chrome’ gloss of my first glaze recipe, but still an interesting surface.
The matt black underglaze fests looked at first less successful, unpleasant to the touch and marked easily. After speaking to Martin on Wednesday I tried using wet and dry on the surface, but revealed some of the white clay body.

On Wednesday I spent the morning in a tutorial with Martin discussing the writing of the thesis. We allocated each section a number of words and started to work out an order for the writing of it. In looking at my practical work Martin suggested that I research using sanitary ware slip as it is designed for large items and would be preferable to press moulding the piece. I emailed Martin Hunt for advice, who suggested I speak to Robin Levien. On Friday I gave him a call and arranged a meeting for next Friday. I mentioned the mentoring scheme, which he told me he had helped to set up.
I had another glaze firing this week, having painted another coat of underglaze on the two test pieces. They came out just before leaving College on Friday and were a definite improvement. They were sanded with 1000 grade wet & dry, giving the jet black one a silky very matt black basalt-like surface. It may be exactly what I’m looking for to contrast the mirror like black glaze.

I have designed a series of pieces to explore that contrast, each a pair, one with the matt inside, its partner matt outside.

The value of our research cluster was again made evident this week at the first of our Seminar room meetings and from a couple of conversations with Steve. The first was a comment that my glazed test torus looked like an event horizon. Looking up its meaning I thought how poetic a reading it was. It is a term used to describe the boundary of a black hole beyond which nothing is ever seen again or ever comes out of. It is also used to describe the edge of the visible universe, as the universe isn’t old enough for light to travel to us from beyond that point. Steve also raised the point that the white of my biscuit fired pieces isn’t much different to the black of the underglaze tests. My wish is to create a light-absorbing surface and white doesn’t have that quality. But it’s an observation worth thinking about.

05.10.07- Realising the virtual

I was determined to ‘hit the ground running’ this week and am pleased to say that I managed to achieve virtually all that I set out to do.
I have spent time thinking about what I can realistically complete in the time available knowing that practical work takes longer than it would in the studio at home, partly because I am exploring new ways of working & I often need advice, sometimes from outside the ceramics & glass department.
I decided to concentrate on the cone and the torus, both of which are one-sided surfaces and are essentially the same form, the cone an angular version of the torus.
So the week started with a throwing session, attempting to create a larger torus than previously. By the end of the week 4 toruses were thrown and turned and two glaze tests had come out, one of which- the metallic black glaze that I’ve used at home, was particularly successful.
One of my aims for this week was to arrange for a torus spiral piece to be rapid prototyped and for a torus model to be CNC milled.

Unfortunately, the RP piece partly failed at the top edge, however it was still very exciting to see the piece with its supports still attached in the SLA machine.
I had hoped to CNC a 560mm diameter model from which to take a mould, but the material it will be made from is incredibly expensive- a 500X100X2000mm. sheet costs £250! I managed to get hold of an offcut that brought the cost down. It’s a dense material that should produce a fine surface without much extra sanding. Due to the sheet size I have had to scale down the model to 480mm. 560mm may have been too ambitious as the mould may have been unmanageable for slipcasting.

Martin Watmough from RapidformRCA gave me details of a French company who are producing a ceramic coating for models produced on the Z-Corp machine and a fast way of producing glass moulds for blowing or casting pieces. I contacted the Managing director who invited me to visit their laboratory in Paris. Martin Watmough is really keen for me to go with ‘Big Al’, one of the RapidformRCA technicians and will part fund a trip. I have to find additional funding so spoke to Tom in the Research office who was encouraging. I’m waiting for confirmation, but hope to go in November.

During the week I had an informal meeting with Martin Smith to discuss what I had done over the summer and my plans for the forthcoming term. He appeared positive and made some practical suggestions. We have arranged a time for a formal tutorial at which all my practical work and writing will be discussed.

14.09.07 -The Torus & the Möbius Strip

Some weeks ago I gave my friend Ivan Payne one of my thrown torus forms to experiment with. He’s an interesting person to discuss my project with as he completed his MA at the RCA last year. One of the brightest lateral thinkers that I’ve ever come across, something new always arises when we toss the ball back and forth. The end result of his unusually quiet investigation was a cut that spiralled up the inside of the torus and back down the outside connecting seamlessly to its starting point. In theory the torus had been bisected, but was very much still one complete form. Both the Torus and the Möbius strip are one-sided surfaces; if a Möbius strip is bisected lengthways it just doubles it’s circumference, which makes me think that the same thing was happening here. [What would have happened to the torus if it was made of flexible rubber?]
I went on to widen the cut & remove a 1cm wide strip of clay from the torus, producing an unsupported gap between the two ‘halves’. At that stage I found it impossible to work out whether the strip of clay was a Möbius strip.
From the workshop it was back to Rhino 3D on the computer in the hope that I could analyse and develop this phenomenon. At this stage I had the feeling that the link between the exploration of the torus was taking me back to the Möbius strip that played an important part in the genesis of this project. After some additional instruction from the very helpful technicians at Simply Rhino I described the spiral line onto the surface of the torus. In the ceramic test piece I was trying to visualise what the strip of clay would look like if it could be removed in one piece from the torus. In Rhino it is possible to take and develop the line into a ‘solid’ ribbon form. A single spiral strip doesn’t have a strong visual link to the torus it evolved from, so I went on to produce a double spiral,then a quadruple spiral, the latter appearing like a skeleton of the torus.
In exploring and developing the torus form, the use of 3D modelling software has been invaluable. It has enabled me to visualize the evolution of the form, literally adding another dimension to the creative process. My attempts to throw the toruses has demonstrated that a great deal of skill is required to realise the different stages of development, There is absolutely nothing wrong in that, it is the age old process helping to produce high quality craft and art work. However, I have chosen to produce forms that conform to a particular set of proportions and so far my throwing skills don’t allow for a very precise reproduction. It’s partly due to the torus being an enclosed form, preventing me from gauging the thickness of the clay wall.