Spire castle mould

thingiverse

When designing my castle mold, I wanted to create a simple, typical original design that featured everything you'd imagine a castle to look like, including spires. My goal was to make the mold one solid shape rather than individual pieces that fit together, making it easier for someone to use. The primary purpose of the mold is to work effectively by creating a sand castle when the mold is removed. By designing the mold in this way, I allowed for sand to be added and then the mold to be taken away, leaving a complete sand castle standing. I incorporated small support rods inside the mold so that no extra support material would need to be added during printing. These rods can simply be snapped off after the mold is finished printing. The mold was designed symmetrically, making it easy to print and design. I tapered some parts of the design to enable the mold to release from the sand more easily. The mathematics involved in creating this design centered on the height and width of the castle mold. The base had to be wide enough to support the height of the mold. A wider base allows for a taller mold. After conducting various tests, I discovered that the base could be 1/3 of the mold's height without it falling over. When printing the mold, I used a 1.5 mm wall thickness to ensure all details were achieved. Setting your 3D printer speed to 50 mm per second should work well for this project.