Halloween Condiment Set
Introduction: Halloween Condiment Set
At Halloween time we display the Pumpkins and with the inner flesh make soup, pies and other food items.
As a food item you will invariable add a condiment in the form of salt, pepper or some other savoury or spice.
It therefore seemed appropriate to create a Pumpkin themed condiment set for salt and pepper as a minimum.
The condiment set was designed using BlocksCAD then 3D printed.
Supplies
3D Printer
Filament (Food Safe) - Orange, Green
Food Safe Finish
Flexible Filament (TPU) or Natural/Synthetic Cork
2 part resin - Black
BlocksCAD
Cura
Long nose pliers
Cutters
Step 1: Design
Each dispenser will be made up of only three elements spout, container and stopper which can all be 3D printed and requiring no supports, simplifying somewhat post processing.
There will be two design variants, one for salt and the other for pepper.
These would be differentiated with both a facial and a spout design.
The facial designs will be included as part of the container giving the impression of being carved into the outer surface. (The only holes needed are for the spout and stopper). This will enable a resin inlay to be applied to highlight the facial features.
The spout would represent the stalk on a real Pumpkin.
In addition the bottom would have provision for a stopper.
The main facial variations would be with the eyes and the spouts with different hole counts.
The main container is based around a miniature Pumpkin variety, tending to have a more flattened top and bottom more reminiscent of a small wheel rather than a ball.
Step 2: Pumpkin CAD - Part 1
BlocksCAD only has primitive shapes and as a result we need to create the Pumpkin shape.
Based on the use of a sphere, this gives both a rounded shape and the ridges in the surface.
This is accomplished by an iterative loop which plots the sphere at a different angle around the circumference of a circle from 0 to 360 degrees based on the specified radius.
A cross section is included to illustrate the position of the spheres and intersection were the ridges are formed.
Had the code used the polar co-ordinate system the position around the circumference to position the sphere could have been calculated from the radius and angle from the centre of the circle.
However, as the code is using the rectangular (Cartesian), co-ordinate system its required to specify the x and y position.
We can relate the x, y position to the position on the circumference of our circle by using Sine and Cosine functions.
Using a unit circle with radius of one the Sine and Cosine at each angle is shown, this is multiplied by the radius of our circle to provide our co-ordinates.
The number of ridges is related to the size of the sphere and the number of steps around our circle circumference.
A step angle of 20 degrees (18 sections), was chosen.
However, this part of the process creates a solid Pumpkin which needs now to be hollowed out.
Step 3: Pumpkin CAD - Part 2
The process of hollowing out the Pumpkin requires the use of the difference function which will subtract one object from another.
This is accomplished by plotting a smaller version of the original shape inside the original. In this case the radius is 4mm smaller.
Step 4: Pumpkin CAD - Part 3
At this stage the object still appears to be solid.
In order to open up the Pumpkin the holes for the spout and the stopper need creating.
Again using the difference object a cylinder with radius 10mm and the same height as the sphere is placed in the centre of the Pumpkin object.
Applying the facial expressions is next.
Step 5: Pumpkin CAD - Part 4
The objects used to create the face are placed in such a way as to leave a depressing but not to create an excessive overhang that would create a void in the outer shell.
The nose is a triangle subtracted from the Pumpkin object.
However, the triangle is not a basic shape and is created from a cylinder using the Side transform which is set to 3.
Next we add the eyes created using the torus object in conjunction with the taper object to elongate the eye for a more sinister look.
To add symmetry include the rotate object and apply 180 degree on the X axis of the eye on the left.
The mouth is made up of five diamonds (there being no default diamond object this made up of a cylinder applying the Side object which is set to 4), applied in an iterative loop.
These facial elements are subtracted using the difference object to create a depression in the Pumpkin surface and coloured blue for contrast.
The main pumpkin design process is complete but two are required. 646