Crayon Molds

Davie · February 21, 2023, 9:30pm

This is a project that my daughter and I came up with recently that I thought I would share. Once you have the mold made then you can melt old broken crayon pieces in the oven to make Heart shaped crayons.

Needed
1/4" 3-flute flat end mill
1/4" 2-flute ball end mill
Aluminum billet: 2.75" x 2.75" x 0.8"

Files
HeartCrayonMold.nc (922.1 KB)
3D Heart Crayon Mold.f3d (6.8 MB)

WCO
To make this part you just need to zero the WCO (G54.1 P11) on the center face of your stock.

Make Crayons

Place a sheet of aluminum foil on the bottom of the oven to catch spills
Preheat oven to 100-200 degrees F
Break up crayon pieces into smaller bits (around 1/4" or smaller). You will need about 3 full crayons worth of crayon
Place crayon bits in the mold and the mold in the oven
Keep an eye on the project in the oven for the crayons to fully melt. This will take around 20minutes.
Once the crayons are fully melted turn off the oven and crack the door open
Wait for the crayon to solidify and the mold to cool. This will take around 30 minutes
Transfer the project to the freezer
Once the crayon is completely cooled pull the project out of the freezer and the crayon should pop out of the mold

This is an adaptation of 3D contoured hearts and soft jaws - #2 by dfroeschner

Justin_Weber · October 9, 2023, 1:03pm

I made this project and my kid loves it! I did have to flip the part in f360, dial back the speeds and feeds (HSS tool and mist coolant), swap the WCS to G54 and changed the stock size to the piece of scrap I found.

Davie · October 9, 2023, 3:22pm

@Justin_Weber Fantastic news! thanks for the note.
My kid and I got carried away with this project and I ended up making a mold for stars and the newly discovered aperiodic shape. Here are files and such for those, if you are feeling frisky.

Tool List

3/8 3 flute flat end mill (T2)
1/4" 3 flute flat end mill (T3)
1/8" 3 flute flat end mill (T4)
1/4" 2 flute ball end mill (T39)
1/8" 2 flute ball end mill (T49)
1/8" mill drill (T38)

Files

Update:
I uploaded an updated f3d file that has some updates I have made to the tool path.
Since I am only making crayon molds the step over is set to 0.01".

Enjoy.

Davie · August 7, 2024, 3:08pm

For anyone following along at home, we have scaled up our operation to include letters. So far we have A, B, and C complete and will finish the alphabet as time permits.

Letter_Molds v15.f3d (5.0 MB)

Ian_Vivero · August 8, 2024, 1:19pm

I notice your B mold was cut backwards. Any plan to remake it so it points the right way?

Dr_Harold_Jones · August 11, 2024, 8:50pm

I made A and C so far. I had to redo all the tools to metric though. Also fusion does not like going from a inch to metric program. All kinds of fusion360 errors about “Tolerance <0 even though it was set for .1mm.
Stupid fusion.

Davie · August 12, 2024, 2:44am

I’m not good at sarcasm and jokes in written form so I might be messing up a perfectly good joke…
The B is backwards so that it inverts the molded crayon such that it is the right way when removed.

Ian_Vivero · August 12, 2024, 1:18pm

Well you got me going back to the picture and realizing my joke wasn’t so great after all. I thought it was just a silly arrangment issue and the B block needed to be rotated 180°. Looking back at your picture I realize the bottom loop is larger than the top (which makes sense of course) so your mirror image explanation is much more valid than my, turn the thing around jab. My dad jokes typically land about half the time. That one clearly fell in the other half

Davie · August 12, 2024, 1:51pm

Haha. That makes this whole back and forth even funnier!
Since we already ran this joke into the ground, here are some pictures to show what I’m talking about.