Hydraulic Press Mold

This is just a quick page to show an example of a hydraulic press mold made with the Form 2 printer. The flower model was made in ZBrush, then turned into a mask. The mask was then applied to a cylinder and pushed down from the surface. I masked off the front, then used the Extract feature with a negative value to extrude a shell back away from the surface, which preserves the design and builds the shell to the backside.

It was then exported as an .OBJ file and imported into Formlabs’ PreForm slicing software. Supports were added, then I moved the slicer down to show a cross-section of the shell.

After printing, the supports are removed, and the back of the shell is filled with cheaper resin. The shell itself only has to be about 1.5-2mm thick because it is backed by solid material. You may need to sand the back of the piece flat.

Rio Grande in the US sells the Bonny Doon Non-Conforming Die Containment System, and these can be made to fit the system easily.

This is a very quick video I created outside of my studio to show the basics…I usually use professional audio equipment, but I’m not at my studio right now.