Cast pewter fantasy football trophy by Bret_Hylton

Last crawled date: 3 years, 4 months ago

I wanted to make a 2020 fantasy football trophy for my league but I wanted it to be metal. I tried a lot of different methods to try and make that happen but struggled to get the results.
This isn't the final iteration but it was the first fairly quality cast.
I printed the model using a .2mm nozzle with 10% infill no supports at .1mm layer height on my unmodified ender 3 pro.
After the print completed I taped the edges open edges of the mold and poured plaster of paris into the opening. I made sure the plaster had a more liquid then solid composition so it flowed into the mold fairly smoothly.
I let the mold sit for about 4-6 hours (I can't remember, went off and watched some TV). I then microwaved the whole print for about 5 mins in a spare microwave that I use for this kind of thing only. The microwave heated the plaster up significantly and speed up the drying process dramatically. While still hot I very carefully removed the plaster from the mold (its pretty fragile). The mold should be hot enough that the plastic is flexible, this destroys the mold. You could wait longer and maybe not destroy the mold but there is a few slight undercuts in the design that I need to get rid of that will make it hard / impossible.
Once the 3 parts are removed from the plastic mold, I replaced in the plaster in the microwave and continued to heat in 5 minute intervals, removing the plaster each time from the microwave let the steam / heat cool off a bit and the microwave to dehumidify by leaving the door open.
Once the plaster stops heating in the microwave you should be good to go for metal casting since the microwave will drive off the water and solidify the plaster. NOTE: Failure to fully dry the plaster part could cause a steam explosion. Google it, if you choose to proceed you do at your own risk. Molten metal steam explosions have been known to scar / blind / leave severe burns, USE PROPER PPE AND YOU OWN COMMON SENSE. THIS IS NOT A FULLY VALIDATED METHOD.
I thing melted pewter in a pan / hotplate I modified for this purpose.
I wrapped the mold with about 4-5 rubber bands and poured pewter into the mold. NOTE: first time I did this a little leaked out. Be aware of where the split lines and where the molten metal can go and where that extra molten metal can pour out to make sure its not a moist surface or something that could cause a steam explosion. USE PROPER PPE, if you don't know what PPE is or what the proper PPE is for this kind of process, STOP!