Clay extruder die

thingiverse

The high school where I work has a vintage 4-inch square clay extruder that's been around for ages, but it's missing the dies. After taking one look at the cost of new ones, I decided to give 3D printing them a shot. So far, this decision has been an absolute game-changer! We were really struggling to make coils using the coil-method pottery technique, so all I've managed to create so far are two dies: one with a single 1/2-inch round hole and another with four 1/2-inch holes. The taper was incredibly effective in reducing pressure and producing smooth clay coils. What's more, one pound of clay resulted in an impressive 12 feet or more of clay coils. Later this year, I'll be teaching students how to create 3D models, and this project is a perfect candidate for demonstrating parametric modeling techniques.