Object to Object 28 - Mold Experiment

First Mould Experiment

As the hand carving took too long, each pattern took around six hours to make. So I wanted to speed up the process by trying different techniques. I first asked the technician at the laser cutting workshop, who told me that laser cutting could not be used to cut clay, as the high temperature of the cut would cause the edges to dry quickly and the whole thing would not dry at the same time.

With no access to machine equipment to help with the carving, I wanted to design a mold to help speed up the carving. I designed a mold which uses a screw to clamp two laser-cut pieces to both sides of the clay and use a thin thread to cut the pattern. However, the thin threads were not pulled fast enough by hand, resulting in the different edges of the cut impacting each other and causing breakage. On the other hand, as the clay has not yet been fired, the edges can be broken during the removal of the mold.

Further Plan

Develop the mold.