Tilework Bowl

Do you like spending lots of time carefully assembling things! I thought so! And this is the bowl for you! :P

Yes, it's a triangular tiling of the surface of a, er, what would this shape be? A truncated toroidal surface, perhaps? But yes, I had lots of fun planning out what kind of patterns I wanted to make and then making sure I printed the tiles in the right colours. Of course, multi-colour printers are getting more and more accessible, but it's still just fun to construct stuff!

As you might be able to discern from the pictures, there are eight different triangular tiles, and they slide in from the top on a rail that slots into the bowl. Four of the tiles point up, and four point down. The upward-pointing ones have side ridges that stick out, and the downward-pointing ones have a matching groove.

Now, it's easy to mix all these pieces up if you aren't keeping track of them, but it's actually fairly simple to work out which goes where. Apart from the ridge/groove thing, you'll notice that the flat face on which each tile prints is at a different angle on each tile. When the tile is in place on the bowl, that face will be horizontal. So, if it isn't, it's in the wrong spot (and it probably didnt' fit the other pieces around it, anyway).

Bear in mind you'll need 36 of each triangle, and it's much easier to find the one you need if you keep them organised rather than fishing through (36x8=) 288 small triangles!

Once all the tiles are slotted in, a retaining ring screws into the top and holds everything in place.

A few thoughts on geometry!

First, the slots: each tile must necessarily use only one slot, because those slots effectively get further and closer from each other at different heights. That's one of those observations you make when you've printed a bunch of pieces that can't possibly slide onto the bowl like you planned :P

Mentioned above was that this is part of a truncated toroidal surface, by which I really just meant that the outer profile is a circular arc. This is important for sliding tiles in, too - if the rail on the tile is of any significant length then the slot needs to maintain a consistent curvature in police circle fashion, or else things will jam up much like a tile that uses two slots at once...

Print Description

This print is an assembly of individual parts, so take care that those parts are nice and neat so as to slot together nicely :) Note that you won't see the bottom face on which the triangle tiles print, so there's no issue with using a raft or other bed adhesion techniques if your little triangles keep trying to jump off the build plate before they're done.

You will need:

• 1 bowl

• 1 retaining ring

• 36 of each of the 8 triangle tiles, so 288 little triangles in total.

Print Dimensions

The main bowl body occupies 173mmx 173mm on the print bed and is 64mm tall.

Supports Needed?

Not at all!  Designed for straightforward printing!

Scalability

While this could certainly be scaled up or down, there will likely be some fiddling required with the relative scaling of the main bowl and the tiles to make sure things still fit nicely.

Print Orientation

The main body prints right-way-up and the threaded top ring prints upside-down. The triangular tiles print point-up since otherwise it would be quite a balancing act.

Further Thoughts

While writing this I thought I'd quickly print off a 50% scaled version of the bowl and a few tiles. It worked quite well, but the connection between the rail and slot starts to get a bit unreliable. As the size gets that small, even a scaled-down tolerance can be too much movement for such tiny overlapping elements to stay connected. My test pieces didn't fall out, but I think if I was actually constructing the whole thing I'd glue it all together for peace of mind.

Happy tiling! :)

xoxo

Sven.

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455 Tilework Bowl