An engineering firm came to us with a high-end customer needing sharp-corner pyramids molded into concrete for their new multi-million dollar home’s interior walls. The firm provided iQuest 3d CAD models with the artwork, pyramids extending about one inch up and down from the wall at about a 162 degree angle.
Intrigued, iQuest took the job and performed the mechanical engineering and design work to create our own custom tooling. The obviously round tool required some well-planned toolpaths to create sharp pyramids going up an down on our HAAS Gantry CNC Mill.
The results speak for themselves! These massive 9’x2′ plastic parts cost about $600 each, no mistakes! We bolted on aluminum sides instead of the concrete company’s typical wooden 2x4s. The final molded concrete impressed the homeowner, but he declined to appear in this article.
Our SolidWorks modeling helped identify the correct cutter angle to form these pyramids. For the ‘Down’ pyramids, we actually made an X or cross shape with the cutter, going from one corner, down to the center, and back up to hit the other corner.
The ‘Up’ pyramids didn’t surprise our machinists as much. Just like a normal chamfer tool, we cut a square to for a pyramid. My mechanical design managed to make smooth, sharp pyramids in a fraction of the time a traditional 3d machining operation with a small 1/8″ ball endmill would have taken- 20 minutes, not 2 days! So cool.