Hot Glue Mosaic Coasters (or Tiles)
Introduction: Hot Glue Mosaic Coasters (or Tiles)
These colourful Hot Glue Mosaic Coasters are fun to make. I was looking at lego art, which made me think of iron melt beads and with the hot glue contest in the back of my mind I thought of doing this.
Instead of the cutter, jig and hole punch, you could just use a craft knife and a normal hole punch. I didn't have a hole punch of the right size, so I made one. Your punch might also get a bit gluey.
I made the cutter jig because I wanted the slices to be consistent. I made the cutter because I found it easier to cut the glue sticks with pressure from above.
Supplies
7mm hot glue sticks in various colours.
Parchment paper
Clothes Iron
A surface to iron on ( used a folded tea towel to protect the surface of my kitchen counter )
Mould release ( I used Silicone spray )
Safety goggles
Dust mask
Gloves
For the mould, cutter and hole punch
3d printer
Filament ( I used PLA and it held up fine, but filament with a higher melting point, like PETG or ABS, would be better for the mould).
Tinkercad and a Tinkercad login.
Small blow torch
Calipers or Ruler
Cutter:
Craft knife with a long blade
Hole Punch:
4mm Aluminium Rivet
Dremel or drill with 2mm, 2.8mm and 3mm metal drill bits.
Sandpaper
Pliers ( I used needle nose pliers and wire cutters )
Hammer
Bench vice (or another way to clamp the rivet while drilling.)
Popsicle sticks
Step 1: 3D Printed Parts
I modeled the mould, hot glue cutter and hole punch in Tinkercad.
I've included instructions for modeling the mould in Tinkercad as I thought you might want to customise it for larger grids or thicker glue sticks. I've also included all the stl files and a link to the Tinkercad file for the mould and tools. I haven't included instructions for modeling the cutter and hole punch. They are both made up of simple boxes and cilinders in Tinkercad. 401
I'm happy to answer any questions regarding the 3D modeling or anything else.
Step 2: Making the Coaster Mould
Open Tinkercad and log in. Start a new project.
1: Create the grid
In The shapes panel search for "grid".
Select a shape called "grid of square columns" and enter the setting as follows:
Columns: 10
Rows: 10
Size 7.5 ( The diameter of a glue stick + 0.5mm tolerance. )
Gap: 0.4 ( I wanted the blocks seperated by a very thin line and this is the width of my printing nozzle.)
Height: 3 ( This will be the thickness of the coaster. )
The finished grid should measure 78.6mm x 78.6mm. This will be the size of the coaster.
From the basic shapes menu add box and scale it to 78.6mm x 78.6mm x 2mm.
Click on align and align it to the top of the grid.
2: To make the rounded corners
From the basic shapes menu add a box, make it a hole and set the radius to 1.
Scale the box to 78.6mm (width )x 78.6mm (length) x 20mm (height).
Add another box and scale it to 80mm (width )x 80mm (length) x 10mm (height).
Select both boxes and click on "align". Center the boxes and then group them.
Make this new object a hole.
Centre align this object and the grid and group them.
3: Complete the mould
Add a box and scale it to 83mm x 83mm x 4mm (height).
Align this box and the grid with the rounded corners from the previous step, so that they are centred on the x and y axis.
Align the grid to the top of the new box.
Make the grid a hole.
Group the grid and the box
Select the new object. Click on export and select stl.
I printed the coaster mould in PLA with a layer hight of 0.28 and 25% infill.
Step 3: The Blade Grip and Cutting Guide
Download and print the blade grip and cutting guide stl files. I printed them in PLA with a 0.28mm layer height and 25% infill.
Break a section of three blades off a long craft knife blade. I put the blade in a craft knife and used pliers to break it off. 110