Ceramic Side Plate

Today I took my first cast from the plate mold.  I was quite excited to see how this turned out.  Unfortunately though the 3D print was too thin to take a slip cast from.  It was very difficult to get the plate from the mold afterwards  because it was so fragile.  The end result was it cracked on the mold and ended up in the recycling pot.

  
  

Second time round Sean helped me built a 5mm wall around the mold to thicken the piece.  This cast really well despite a small bubble in the clay and one wall being too thin because of the mold not being on straight.

I removed the thin edge that fell off and cleaned up the plate.  I am very happy with the result, however I am going to print a thicker plate and remake the mold for a full run as it will be very time consuming to build a wall on the mold every time and also a bit risky as to if they will turn out ok.

The plate is now drying off and will be bisque fired soon.

Side plate mold

This week I have been working on the mold for my smaller side plates. Firstly I prepared the board and stuck the 3D printed plate down with clay.

  I built the side panels and cast the plate with a pour hole.  When I took the mold apart I realised the plate had lifted during the pour and I had to then start the process again after digging out my 3D print.

The second time round the process seemed to work well and I left the mold to dry off for a week.