For our final project, we were tasked with creating a chess piece using 3D construction methods. This included using a CNC Router and a 3D Printer to create positive molds of our chess piece with which we could then make silicon negatives. With the silicone negatives, we would then cast the final chess piece with polyurethane.

We started our final project by finding an object we wanted to cast from Thingiverse.com. Juan and I ultimately decided on a symmetrical Poke ball chess piece. Once we had our object picked out, we 3D printed it and decided on how we would split the positive halves for casting. We didn’t split the object perfectly down the middle, as we were unsure of how far the CNC could reach, and ultimately decided on printing roughly 60% of the object and routing the other 40%.

Once we had split our piece, we went ahead and printed the larger side and created the silicone negative for it.

After we made the first negative, we had to make the routed positive. We ran into several issues on this front, including not having access to the larger CNC router, but we were eventually able to route our design. On our first routing attempt, we ran into the issue of not finishing the routing correctly, which meant we had to redo the routing (Meaning our total time sitting in front of the Nomad router added up to be around seven hours). Thankfully, we were finally able to route our piece correctly and create the silicone negative from it.

Once we had our routed piece, we were able to create the negative mold and then start casting our pieces. We ended up casting a total of nine pieces, with one failed piece, four white pieces, and four pieces with color.

In terms of cost, we spent approximately 12 hours working on this project. At a base rate of $14 an hour, we would expect the total labor cost of this project to be roughly $168. In terms of material cost, a 2ft piece of 2×4″ lumber costs $1.82, and since we used roughly 8 inches total of lumber, that would mean the cost of the wood we used would be around $.60. For the PLA prints, a kg roll of PLA filament costs around $17 and since we used roughly 15g of it, that would mean the total cost of the PLA we used would be around $.25. For the silicone mold, a gallon of the material we used would be around $107 on Amazon. Since we used roughly 2 oz total of the material, that would mean the cost of the silicone for our project would be around $1.67. Finally, for the cost of the polyurethane we used, a full 10 gallons of the material would cost around $468 on Specialtyresin.com, and we only used around 270mL of material or roughly .07 gallons. This means that the total cost of polyurethane for our project would be around $3.28. In total our project would cost around $173.80.