Post #593902 by Philot on Thu, Jun 16, 2011 6:56 AM

Not entirely on-topic, but tangentially related, is is feasible to directly carve onto clay? If so, would it have to be semi-set, or would a green dried blank be carvable?

I've been keeping an eye on the hobby-level CNC stuff, and had the idea of being able to do a design on the computer and go directly to clay with it.
As a further refinement, I had been kicking around a way to do parametric designs that could generate many unique designs from a single template.

(Going even further blue-sky, I recall seeing something at one time about the Iranian architect Nader Khalili proposing a CNC system to poop out cement to automate building construction. That sounds like a fun project to build a small version that could squeeze out clay.)

A quick search of thingiverse didn't turn up any designers doing tiki-related stuff yet.

It seems like we already have room everything for mass-produced to hand-made mugs. This would fall somewhere in between. Although personally, a one-of-a-kind, hand-made by the artist would always be most desirable.

[added: mods please feel free to kick this to a separate thread if it's too much of a derail]
blog post about Jonathan Keep, who is using a reprap to extrude clay. Check out them crazy shapes he's making! There's also some mention of a virtual pottery wheel. Although, from looking at the photos in the blog, it doesn't look like reprap has the resolution to turn out finished work for tiki mugs.

[ Edited by: Philot 2011-06-16 08:35 ]