Modern Art Vase for Dried Flowers

I am a big fan of art but what I really like is combining form with a function. I have for a time been wanting to create something combining 3D printing and wood to make something that is more than what a project using strictly 3D printing or wood could be.

My wife likes to grow flowers and with autumn on the way I thought I wanted to make a vase for dried flowers so she could keep flowers in our home even for the darker days to come.

The design of this vase came to me one day when I was cooking spaghetti and twisted the bundle before adding them to the pot, I hopped on to my computer and started designing.

What I want you to take with you from this Instructable is the inspiration to combine different materials and processes but I documented the way I designed this particular vase in CAD so you could make it the same way, with instructions on how to customize it for your need.

Hope you'll like it!

The supplies list is rather simple, you will need:

1. Access to a 3D printer and some filament, I used standard PLA on my Prusa mk2.5
2. Some wooden rods, the dimensions are not important but for easier assembly, make sure they are of even length and diameter. The ones I used are 22 cm long (~8.5 inches) with a diameter of 13mm (~0.5 inches). Here is the link to the ones i bought

https://panduro.com/sv-se/produkter/skapa-dekorera/dekormaterial/rundstavar-pinnar/5-rundstavar-langd-22-cm-diameter-13-mm-804682

I designed the vase in CAD, you can use any CAD software since I will explain the steps in a general term and not brand specific. If you don't know anything about CAD software yet I recommend Fusion360 or OnShape and that you watch some basic tutorials before jumping on this project.

We don't really need the model of the rods themselves but we will use them in order to shape the bottom and top later.

Start with creating a plane that is approximately 205mm above your top plane then draw a circle on both of the planes with a diameter of 112mm. These measeurements will vary depending on the size of your wood dowels, but the great thing about parametric CAD is that you can change them later and update the model. Create an axis in the center of the circles (where the front and center plane intersect, we will need this later).

Make a point on the lower circle where the center plane intersects it and one point on the upper circle where the front plane intersects it.

Then make an axis going through these points and then create a plane using the lower point, the plane should be normal to the axis.

Draw a circle on the newly created plane with the point in the center, the diameter of the circle should be the same diameter as your wooden rods.

Then extrude (pull in some softwares) the circle up until you reach the upper point. There, you have made your dowel!

Use the measurement tool to check the length of the dowel, and then adjust the distance between the two planes until the dowel has the right length (220mm för me)

Now comes a little tricky part, use the freshly created rod and do a circular pattern around the axis going up. I made 18 rods with an angular distance of 20 degrees between them but this may vary on your design. Play around with the number of members and their spacing until the rods are not intersecting each other and you are happy with the design.

Create a plane a few millimeters below your top plane, I did 10 mm below. Draw a circle on that plane which is envelops the rods with a little bit of a margin, extrude the circle upwards (about 20mm) so that you create a round slap which eats the bottom part of your rods. Use the draft tool to create this cool inwards slope of your base plate, I used 12 degrees to approximately match the slope of the rods.

The create a sketch on the front plane and revolve cut it to create this indentation on the bottom piece, this will help keep the flowers inside the vase.

Now for the magic, use the rods to cut out the volume of the base that they will slot into in real life. This is called a boolean operation in general (but in Fusion360 it is called Combine), use the bottom piece as the target and the rods as the tool.

We will use a similair approach as the bottom piece, create a plane a few millimeters above the plane you created in the beginning, draw a circle and extrude it down to engulf the rods just like with the bottom piece. Add the taper with the draft tool like the bottom piece and then create a sketch on the face of the top part, draw a cricle with a diamater so that it is inside the ends of the rods and extrude it all the whay through to create an opening in the top piece for the actual flowers.

Add a taper to the hole so that it matches the outside draft (the sectional cut is just to show, don't actually cut it like this)

Now you are theoretically done with the design but the holes will need a small tolerance to actually fit the dowels. For both the top and bottom piece, select all of the wall surfaces of the holes and perform an offset maneuver of about 0.2mm to create a small clearence which will allow for easier assembly later.

When done, export the files as either STL or STP files and slice them in your favourite 3D printing slicer program, I use Prusaslicer.

The print them, I used white PLA with 0.35mm layer height and 10% infill on my Prusa mk2.5 and it worked really well, you don't need support (at least not for PLA).

Push your rods into the holes in the bottom (the easy part) and then try to fiddle the top part onto the rods all at the same time. Push and twist at the same time and jiggle until you bottom out. You are done!

You can fill it with some flowers, you can admire the piece as is or fill it with anything your imagination comes up with. While writing this I realised that a slightly larger version of this could be a really beautiful rubbish bin, and a slightly broader variant with some sort of board on top could be a beautiful decorational table.

Hav fun with it and don't hesitate to comment if you have any question or anything to add about the design or the instruction.

Happy making!