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Joined 3 years ago
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Cake day: December 26th, 2023

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  • There are basically 3 ingredients: cardboard, paper, and glue.

    First I would make glue by mixing flour with water 1:10 and microwave it until boiling. I’d stir and scrape the bottom every 30 seconds for the first few minutes to avoid burning

    The cardboard needs to be kept dry (unless you want to separate the layers). It can be cut pretty easily with a serrated knife. For the first few layers of this box, I cut the cardboard to match the shape of the items. For the final layers, I just took the leftover pieces and glue them on. It doesn’t have to be perfect since you can add more paper later. However, cardboard - cardboard bonds seems to be pretty weak, and you can’t put too much glue on it, or it will get wet and separate. So I use paper to bind them together.

    To get the paper, I spray water down the wavy side of the cardboard (a strong hose seem to work better than a trickle). After that the layers should separate easily. Getting the paper wet and tearing it by hand will give it better edges than cutting with scissors. I would use big pieces of paper on flat surfaces and straight angles, then thin strips for corners and curvy surfaces.

    If you need to cut out something from the piece, you can wait for it to dry and cut with the serrated knife. The first version of the box actually doesn’t have the hole for the funnel, I actually cut it out with the serrated knife. Then I covered the knife marks with paper

    Edit: you can use any cardboard without the glossy surface. The glossy surface doesn’t stick to the glue.













  • You can gets started with this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45JhacvmXV8. I don’t reccomend waterproofing your stuff though, as it prevents you from modifying them later.

    For moulding, coffee ground and glue is simpler, but will take a week to completely dry. It also shrinks, so you have to leave your items inside for the first days of drying. Corrugated cardboard layers will dry faster and keep their outer shape, but is more tedious to make. Maybe you can try cardboard inside and coffee ground outside

    In any case, cover the surface with paper and the corners with thin strips of paper. I’d recommend drying it quickly (using a heat gun, or the sun) to prevent fungal growth inside the thick parts.