The Stone Age meets the Digital Age as University of Washington researchers use 3D-printing to produce clay pots:
About five years ago, Mark Ganter, a UW mechanical engineering professor and longtime practitioner of 3-D printing, became frustrated with the high cost of commercial materials and began experimenting with his own formulas. He and his students gradually developed a home-brew approach, replacing a proprietary mix with artists’ ceramic powder blended with sugar and maltodextrin, a nutritional supplement. The results are printed in a recent issue of Ceramics Monthly. Co-authors are Duane Storti, UW associate professor of mechanical engineering, and Ben Utela, a former UW doctoral student.“Normally these supplies cost $30 to $50 a pound. Our materials cost less than a dollar a pound,” said Ganter. He said he wants to distribute the free recipes in order to democratize 3-D printing and expand the range of printable objects.
“When powders are $30 a pound, I can’t let students try something new or experimental,” Ganter said. “But when it’s $1 a pound, I don’t care. I encourage them to try new things.”The lab can go through $4,000 of materials per quarter, he said. In the 15 years of the lab’s operation, bills for materials dwarf the roughly $20,000 initial costs for a printer.
Lab fees were already at the maximum, Ganter said, so instead the group went looking for a different approach: cheaper materials.
“If we’re in trouble financially, imagine what’s it like at a high school or a technical school?”
“Clay is dirt cheap,” Ganter noted, which led to these recipes, based on ceramic powders that are sold at local pottery stores by the 50-pound bag:
MaltoDextrin Printing Slip
Xtra-White, Redart TerraCotta, or Stoneware Buff Slip 66.66%
Sugar (extra fine) 16.67
MaltoDextrin 16.67