Create Molds With Keys for 3D Printing | Convert Blender Models into 3D Prototype or Moulds

in this tutorial we'll discuss how to create any mold like this in blender which you can use in a 3d printing machine our aim would be to send these molds to a 3d printer and create real-life molds and from those molds you can then easily create any model any decorative item or maybe some quick prototype so we can use blender even in our everyday life and we'll also discuss how to create these keys that go into the female parts of our mold keys are very important as they help us to join the two parts of the mold tightly and correctly so let us start with the base file of this tutorial here we have already created a flower vase we'll first create a mold for this so that we can 3d print a mold and then create this vase in real from that mold we have named this model simply as model first let us add one cube we need to move this cube upward so that it covers our model entirely and we may also need to resize the cube based on the size of our model let us turn on the wire frame view mode so that we can see the inside parts now press one on your number keypad to go to the front view mode we'll resize the cube here by slowly changing these size factors so that it completely covers our model maybe we can go for a factor of 1.5 and we need to bring it down so that the top end of our cube just touches the top end of the flower vase perfect now what we'll do is we'll cut this cube into half so that we get only one part or the left part of our final mold we are going to do that in the x dimension so let us change this x scale factor to half of what we currently have here so we'll change this to 0.75 and we need to move it toward the left like this so that it just covers the left half and nothing more we can directly enter the correct value here which is minus 0.75 it should be exactly half of this number but it is on the negative side because this is negative x direction so we are now done with its size and the location let us turn on the material view mode we'll cut out our model from this cube to create the mold so while the cube is selected here let us go to the modifiers tab and add one boolean modifier please ensure that the difference option is selected then in this target field we have to select our model but we see that our cube suddenly disappeared with this operation that is because it does not always work correctly sometimes you may need to enable this option called self intersection or you can also use this fast option many a time this method gives us the correct result to know whether the result is correct or not you can simply hide the model now you can see that a nice figure is made from the cube this will help us to create the mold once you are satisfied that the model is cut out perfectly you can apply this modifier now the model can be deleted as well it is no longer needed so we got one half of our mold which is the left half we need to also create the other half but we can simply press shift d to duplicate this part since our model is a symmetric one this can work as our right side mold so you just need to 3d print any one side two times and join them together but if your object is not symmetrical you can create the right half in the same way once they are ready we also need to create the keys here so that the two halves lock perfectly when we place them together as one mold actually we'll first create the keys for one and then we'll duplicate it for the other side so let us delete this part now go to the add menu and add another cube we will resize this cube to create our keys so let us change these scale factors to make it smaller we can directly enter a factor of 0.3 in the x-scale factor then 0.1 for the y-scale and 0.2 for the now you need to decide where exactly on this mold you want to place the keys you should select a clear area away from the actual model so let us place it somewhere here we'll create the female part or the lock on this side and then we'll use this same thing on the other side to create the male part or the key for our lock but this key lock combination can actually fail in reality it will work better if we first add some bevel and some taper to this so go to the modifiers tab and add a simple deform modifier switch over to the taper option so that we get a taper like this but we will use a lower value maybe 0.1 that should be sufficient for our purpose now apply this modifier and then add a bevel modifier this point one value is good enough but let us increase this segment value maybe to five then apply this modifier as well so we got some roundness added to all the edges of our key and it is also slightly tapered this will be proved very helpful when you try to actually insert the key into its hole in order to fit the two parts together we have to now place this key perfectly we need to ensure that on this side the key has exactly 50 percent overlap inside our mold so let us directly modify its location value to zero however the other fields the y and z locations do not matter much you can use them to position the key as you wish let us use a whole number like two for its z location and let us enter minus 1.15 here now it will be a better design and a more useful design if we add another set of lock-in key on the lower side of our mold so press shift d on your keyboard to create a duplicate copy of this key and move it down right here we need to ensure that the x location is zero and the y location has the same value as that of the other one only the z location will be something different like zero so we have the set of two keys here now we'll cut the holes from them for the female parts and then we'll add the same keys on this side for the male parts so select the cube or the mold then go to the modifiers tab and add one boolean modifier we have to use the difference option and in the target object select the first cube or the first key if you now hide this you'll see that a nice hole is made from our key it is working correctly so we'll create the second hole like this let us first apply this modifier then add another boolean modifier and this time we'll select the second cube let us apply this as well if we hide this we can see that two holes or two locks are created nicely for our mold we'll now add the actual keys we need to add them to this side matching the lock positions so let us bring back our cubes we'll select them together and move them toward the other side but we need to ensure that their positions are exactly matching with this pair of holes so select a cube and in the object properties rectify this y location value it will be opposite in sign but the value will be same as that of its hole now please remember that our keys have got some taper like this so we need to rotate the keys so that they can enter into this hole that means we have to change its zero rotation by 180 degrees and the same thing to be done for the other one as well it will also help a lot if we slightly reduce them in size compared to the size of their respective holes otherwise you may find it little difficult to push the keys into the holes it may get stuck here we will reduce these scale factors by a small amount so go to the object menu and then apply the scales now reduce these values maybe to 0.99 or 9 8. again for this one let us similarly first apply the scale factors then we'll reduce these factors to that same point nine eight now we are ready to join these keys with our mold so select the mold go to the modifiers tab and add a boolean modifier we have to use this union option and in the target object select the first cube but if the mold disappears like this you can switch over to this fast option let us now apply this modifier and then add another boolean modifier select the union option and this time in the target object select the second cube let us then apply this modifier as well we can now delete these cubes since their purpose is over so our mold is fully ready and it has got both the male keys and the female keys or the locks the lock and key mechanism will help us to lock it with the other half since our model is symmetric we can simply duplicate this to create the right half in a similar way if you want you can also break it into four symmetric parts it is always better to look for an axis of symmetry because molds work better when they are symmetric even if your model is not symmetric in one dimension it may have a symmetry in another dimension you can use that so we discussed a quick technique to create any model prototype if you just have a 3d printer all that you need to do now is 3d print these molds and join them together you can then create your model in real using any type of material you like because they are now real-life molds so i hope you like this tutorial thanks for watching and don't forget to subscribe to this channel

Channel: 5 Minutes Blender

Views: 34,511

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Id: 57CmROIJP6w

Length: 9min 42sec (582 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 30 2022