Ice lantern mould

thingiverse

Why not use 3d-printing to create beautiful ice lanterns? I came up with the idea to make an ice mould so that water can fully freeze and there is still space for a candle. The mould has also relief holes at the bottom so that freezing air can circulate through the core and freezes water from the inside too. When the water is fully frozen, I have brought the mould to the bathroom’s floor, turned it upside down and, let it warm up a little bit and showered hot water to its surfaces (outer and core surfaces). Note: when you are filling the mould with water, you have to have a gap between the water level and the top edge of the mould. With this gap the ice lantern can drop down from the mould while you are pouring hot water. The mould can be used again as long as it keeps water inside. I utilized Cura’s “spiralize outer contour”, also known as “vase mode”, to have the outer shape and core watertight. The tweak in this lantern is that the outer shape and core are connected so that the nozzle can truly extrude the whole water contacting walls without breaks in extrusion. This also gives one extra feature: the mould can slightly bend open when freezing ice expands (same mass of ice has more volume than water). This slot is visible but at least it fades out to the spirals of the ice lantern.