Bespoke Chocolate Moulds!
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I've had a very interesting chat with a local chocolate maker today who contacted me and wants to make a building/buildings/the whole city centre, from chocolate! Our city is home to Rowntrees/Nestle and also Terry's (before it closed down and took those delicious chocolate oranges with it!) so has a rich chocolatey heritage.
I'm not sure of actual sizes/spec yet, but am meeting the client soon to have a chat.
Anyway, I'd basically like some ideas before we meet. I was thinking 3d printing for the moulds but have no experience of this and from what I've read, the cost could be prohibitive? Is injection moulding a better alternative? Can SketchUp be utilised to design? Again, sorry, but I have no experience in this either and I'm guessing the costs would make this unviable?
Is there another angle I should be attacking this from? Does SketchUp need to be involved at all and will the client be better exploring another avenue? I think the budget could be tight on this (when isn't it?!) but am going to offer my time for free - I think it's such a cool project.
Any thoughts much appreciated!
Thanks!
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i've made chocolate molds using vac-forming, out of food grade thermo-plastic, however, you need to know the liquid state temperature, and cool-down time to avoid distortion on large shapes.
also, there a small firm near Iron Bridge, Talford that has 2 cnc routers for (hard) industrial foams that can be either used as molds or as plugs for molds.
They carved a full size horse drawn carriage for us and the detail is fantastic. [the cad was done in Rhino but I'm sure SU would have been quicker and possibly better for the job].the third option, that I've heard of, but not tried, is laser cutting flat sheets of chilled chocolate and gluing on extra details from small molded pieces using warm liquid.
there's quite a lot of food tech websites with jelly and chocolate molding ideas...
I'd certainly look at 3d printing for small detailed items, there are some food safe materials available.
john
NB. in answer to last weeks unrelated thread...
when referring to food I tend to use 'mold' and 'molding', as making the best chocolate 'mould' may not be desirable. -
Hello Lee, sounds like a great idea; but! You've seen those little sculptured models with all the little hand crafted details.
If you apply a bump/displacement map in SU it's still only a flat surface. I once worked for a sculpter (not SU work) she sculpted in clay, then it was cast in bronze to establish a master mould which in turn was used to cast silicone moulds.
Just my take on it! maybe wrong though.
John -
Sorry John, not entirely sure I follow. . . . There'll be no bump maps used - I'm guessing it will be a simple SU model, made into a mold (thanks driven!) ready for the chocolate to be poured in. It will then be decorated/embellished by the very skilled chocolatiers.
Driven, thanks for your reply - some great ideas which I will definitely investigate. Thanks.
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here's some good vac forming 'intro' stuff http://thechocolatemoldfactory.com
john -
3D Chocolate printing!
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You should definitely talk to the client to find out what they need.
Maybe they just need a simple 3D model that they can make templates from which they just cut out chocolate sheets, and then do all decoration by hand?
The only 3D food project I've been involved in was when I made 3D model of our local old fortress which I printed templates for on an A2 printer. Then we built it in ginger bread with my son and his class almost 10 years ago. As you can see from the attached photo they did all the decoration/details "in post"
It was a great project for those 10 years old kids, and tasted good too
But if they need all details in the model, and wants to make one more than one "copy", I would definitely check out the prices for 3D printing and/or cnc for mold making.
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I'd think you're going to need to know fairly basic stuff like the overall scale of the mould...and how much detail they want included, as opposed to adding themselves. Then you'll need to source a 3D printer and find out what the maximum size is that they can handle.
This building was modelled in SU, exported to STL then 3D printed. It's about 1 ft high and the windows are inset about 1mm.
I don't think the actual modelling in SU will be much of a problem...especially now with the new Solid Tools (which I didn't have for the Chrysler Bldg). I suspect that you could simply model the town as normal, ensuring that you have a clean outside shell, then just delete the base, flip the topography and create a new base, giving you a mould.
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Alan Fraser wrote
@unknownuser said:This building was modelled in SU, exported to STL then 3D printed. It's about 1 ft high and the windows are inset about 1mm.
I don't think the actual modelling in SU will be much of a problem...especially now with the new Solid Tools (which I didn't have for the Chrysler Bldg)..... can you please give me the details of the 3d printer that was used for the model, also will like to know if we can export straight from sketchup?
Thanks
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I have never cast anything in chocolate, but I have made a few plaster moulds for casting ceramics/porcelain teapots, vases, reliefs etc. If that Chrysler building was to be cast in porcelain the mould would have to be split into at least 4 separate pieces (more if there are inset windows in the concave parts), and some of the tinier details would have to be cast/modeled separately and assembled afterwards.
When casting procelain in plaster moulds you pour liquid porcelain into the assembled mould, let it stay there for a few minutes, and pour the liquid out again. The dry, porous plaster mould causes a skin of clay to be stuck to the inside of the mould - the thickness depends on the dryness of the mould and the time spent inside the mould before pouring out again. I'm sure such a procedure would not work with chocolate? Another moulding technique with clay is to push soft clay into plaster mould parts, and then assembled when dried slightly (or even when still quite soft).
All the cast chocolate I've seen looks like it has been cast in (usually 2) parts that are assembled afterwards.
If I should make such a building from chocolate I think I would make a simple 3D model and unfold into separate parts to be printed on paper as templates. Then I would maybe make (3Dprint?) one or more "roller pins" with "windows" to stamp into slightly soft chocolate sheets (if that¨s possible ie?)? Or maybe make some flat window moulds for stamping (or casting?)? I think that making full 3D moulds for several such big buildings would be very expensive and complicated.
It all depends on the level of details, and the level of realism?
Sounds like a fun project though
I love such off the MoR projects -
Thanks so much to everyone for the contributions. Got lots to take on. I'll let you know how things progress.
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@ Openspaces
We did a number of these models as a joint venture with Redeye.
We actually wrote our own stl exporter (sorry, can't share it) but you can download similar plugins from sites such as this. I think there may also be one on the official Google add-ons site.Redeye has an stl analyzer that will check for any errors (ie lack of watertightness) as well as giving you a precise idea as to the eventual scale of the model (as sent to the printer) and what degree of fine detail is possible. I think there are also some plugins here that will check the validity of a model whilst still in SketchUp.
The nice thing about the Redeye process is that although it has a rigid outer surface, the interior is honeycombed, so (sticking with the original chocolate theme) any given model weighs about the same as if it's made of this stuff....quite an advantage if you're having to carry around several samples.
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Here's my favorite SKP to STL exporter, and its free!
Lee, I'd love to hear how it turns out
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Thanks Fraser, your reply was quite educative.
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