In our time, concrete is used in a very diverse way as a building material. Decorative items such as works of art and sculptures made of concrete are also popular. Makers discovered concrete early on and created a lot with it, from vases to loudspeaker housings (PDF). When my family was making decorative bowls using molds from real leaves, my eye fell on the hollow 3D test prints of a small statue. Shouldn’t you get concrete in there too? The first test was immediately successful and so this project took off.

Concrete has to be kept in shape as it hardens, which can take days. In the construction sector, formwork is used for this, and reusable, divisible forms are used to manufacture curb stones and the like. Such shapes can of course also be produced with a 3D printer, but that requires a lot of know-how and a lot of filament.

Of the Vase-Mode therefore seemed to me ideally suited and then also proved to be useful, with a few restrictions. Yes, you destroy the shape when you take it out and you also waste some plastic. But since the created object is very durable, it seemed to me justifiable. Because one does not usually produce a larger series, the complex and filament-intensive production of a divisible and reusable form is hardly worthwhile. However, this effort is necessary if the desired object cannot be printed in vase mode.

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