Clay Stamp Balls 01: Branchy & Truchet

Lots of people have downloaded my clay rollers. Here's another fun way to add texture and patterns to clay projects, as easy as rolling a ball.

Each Clay Stamp Ball is 65mm in diameter, just a bit smaller than a hard baseball. It fits comfortably in most adult hands (for smaller mitts you can scale it down in your slicer). You can use it anyway you'd like: roll it in a line to make a border, in a drunken path for wild decoration or freeze frame to make a unique stamp.

I plan to make a number of designs available.

Branchy. I design in Rhino 3D, which can work magic transferring plane patterns to curved surfaces. But that technique inevitably pinches the tops and bottoms of the pattern. I looked for a way to pattern directly on the curved surface and found it in a plugin: Rhino Polyhedra by Dale Fugier. This alchemical miracle can produce more than 650 patterns with names such as Truncated Deltoidal Hexecontahedron, Snub Icosidodecahedron, Rectified Truncated Cuboctahedron and Propello Icosahedron. I think this is one of them, but I'm not positive because I did this during my fevered dream of discovery.

Truchet. From Wikipedia: "Truchet tiles were first described in a 1704 memoir by Sébastien Truchet entitled "Mémoire sur les combinaisons", and were popularized in 1987 by Cyril Stanley Smith." That same Stanley Smith figured out this variation, formed with two quarter-circles in squares. I engraved that tiled pattern, randomly rotated, onto the six surfaces of a quad sphere to make this thing.

The group photo shows a number of Clay Ball Stamps I designed and printed in the course of developing techniques. It is representative: models shown in the photo may be uploaded here. Or maybe not as I develop new designs. In any case all my designs are carefully designed and tested.

Are they printable? Yes: with the help of supports. I've had good results with basic supports from the build plate (don't use tree supports). The support structure generally snaps off cleanly. I've printed these in ABS and ASA but PLA and PETG should work fine, too.

If you want to encourage this project please leave a comment and show your results. Suggestions welcome. Thanks.

Check out my other clay stamp models in this Clay/Pottery Stamps Collection.

Want more? You'll find unique and exclusive Clay Stamp Ball designs at Matthew Wafler Creations website, already printed and ready to imprint clay, at reasonable prices. Matthew, a fan of my Clay Rolling Stamps, suggested this Clay Ball project to me.