Coil CAM and 3D Printed Pottery

I used the CoilCam Grasshopper setup to 3D print this form. I wanted to push the boundaries of the clay and see if I could get "controlled" sinking for visual effect. I was inspired by the droopy forms on this orange pot in the lab.

Clay

Grasshopper

Small PotterBot

Based on some advice from someone familiar with CoilCam, I generated some unsupported overhangs to get the droopy effect. I modified one of the example files to make a square wave cascading up the side in a spiral.

As you can see in the image of the Toolpath generator, there are a few parameters I can modify.

For the radius shaping parameter (which defaults to a circle for each layer), I added a square wave to create the bumps. My amplitude was about 1/10 of the period and I used 2 bumps to make a "smooth" shape. Each layer should have about 2 waves, so I can get a distinct rotation.

For scale shaping parameter, I used the same setup as the example, which was an addition of two sine waves- 1 large wave for the profile and one smaller wave to make the oscillations.

I left scalingRadius shaping parameter alone, and it is just a linear function with 0.05 slope.

I didn't add any translating factors to this model.

For the Rotate parameter, I used the Staircase function. I used a step width of 6 and a height of 40. I didn't want a lot of features protruding out, and I had trouble tuning this. I realized that I needed to decrease the number of waves in my layers, by increasing the period of the radius shaping parameter. Otherwise, it gets too busy. This could also be a cool effect similar to the example, but I wanted fewer features and one defined spiral cascading up.

The tool path is pictured in red.

Grasshopper files here.

As you can see by this picture, I did get some unanticipated sinking. I quite like it, but it may not be ideal for firing. I think I would decrease the amplitude of the smaller sine wave (for the wavy profile) if I were to print this again. I did have to tune the z baby step and extrusion ration on the potterbot interface while it was printing.