Custom Mold Followers with Embossing

[Cartierusm]

I make custom cheese presses, see them in this section. I also make custom followers that will emboss whatever you like in your cheese. I used to use my logo on one side and my name on the other. Contact me for a quote. Make sure to include follower diameter, what you want to emboss and how large you want the embossing. You can contact me at carter.raff@gmail.com

[mikekchar]

Feel free not to answer this question since you clearly say to contact you for a quote.  It seems really cool, but I'm suppose it's well outside my budget as a hobbyist?  My friend's father used to own a plastics factory that made custom food grade things.  I once asked him to quote me a custom mash tun and it was in the thousands of dollar range...  And I reckon it's totally reasonable for custom craftmanship, but inaccessible to the kind of person who uses a $15 picnic cooler as a "cheese cave" ;-)

But just on the off chance, what kind of range are we talking about for a single follower (if you will even do that)?  Tens, hundreds or thousands?

[awakephd]

Mike, some types of 3d printed plastic (e.g., PET or PETG) are considered food safe, at least as far as the plastic is concerned. The somewhat porous nature means that cleaning the plastic thoroughly is an issue. Still, if you already have a 3d printer, a print is cheap to make, perhaps even for a one-time use - something I've thought about, but haven't actually tried yet. I have, however, printed out some draining stands that go in the bottom of my ripening boxes, and keep intending to design and print a stand to hold my camemberts (or "malembries") once they are wrapped and in the cold fridge.

[Cartierusm]

I'm always happy to answer questions. I just say to email me for this very reason. Some forums, I'm sure it's me, I can never get notifications. Like this post I never got notified. I'll check my setting's again.

So these are custom one offs meaning it's geared toward the home cheese maker. Depends on the design and size, but I'm charging anywhere from $50-$200 each, of course they can go up if the design is very intricate or needs lots of redesign or clean up.

These are all solid food grade HDPE.

To further what awakephd said, if you 3D printed it, it would be a one time use only, but more than likely you're going to get stray plastic bits in your cheese. These would be only a few and could be picked out. Also 3D print are not strong in this type of situation. Now it might work if you were to use a metal follower that completely covered the printed follower, but if it was just in the center of the follower it would crack in a second. It would also probably use an entire spool of filament. Unless you're making 4" cheeses.

[awakephd]

Use a whole spool of filament?? I must be doing something wrong with my 3d prints - even my largest designs have never come close to using that much. But absolutely agree that you would not want to use a 3d printed design as a follower; it would more appropriate as a thin design plate going under the follower (or in the bottom if the mold has a bottom).

No question that for a durable, reusable, actual follower rather than simply pattern, Cartierusm's design is the way to go.

[Cartierusm]

I was assuming it would be 1/2" thick and infill was 100% and 8" in diameter. I would think that would be pretty close to a spool.

[awakephd]

I was assuming it would be 1/2" thick and infill was 100% and 8" in diameter. I would think that would be pretty close to a spool.

Maybe so; I can't say I've ever printed at 100% infill. Most studies I've seen suggest that there is little benefit in strength in going that high, and in fact there can be some deleterious results unless you deliberately underextrude a bit ... which then compromises the strength.

Again, absolutely no question that milling it out of solid HDPE is the only high strength, durable way to go.

[Mrtatai83]

the subject is old, but I also hack in 3d printing. I modeled a follower 180 mm in diameter and 5 mm thick for example, I also come up against the price of molds with follower.
my slicer gives me 185 g of plastic for this part (50% infill). and 212 g for 100% infill.
the problem of cleaning remains. Some recommend coating with a layer of food grade expoxy resin.