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Digital Fabrication

How to Make a Concrete Firepit With a 3D Printer

Ben Uyeda casts just three repeating shapes

By Rain Noe - December 3, 2018

There's something charming about creating your own fire pit or fire ring with pre-cut blocks or natural stone:

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But if you're interested in something more designey, Ben Uyeda shows you how to create your own shapes by injecting some digital fabrication into the process. Uyeda CADs up his desired forms and 3D prints them, then creates a mold in which he can cast inexpensive concrete.

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We give him extra points for leaving an initial mold mishap in the final cut, as that's something we could totally see happening to a lot of people:

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Also note that you don't need a 3D printer to do this; as Uyeda points out, you can form or carve your own shapes out of whatever material you have handy, then make a mold from those. But if you do want to go the 3D-printed route, Uyeda's made the 3D files available for free here.

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Digital Fabrication

Rain Noe

Rain Noe is a writer and industrial designer based in New York City.

3 Comments

N Neat

2 months ago

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1Z

Reply

Cool project, I think I'll try it out with a couple of slight hacks:
1. Vacuum forming machine to make the final concrete molds.
2. We have another neat tool called a 'shovel' to dig the pit. ;)

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Nathan D.

9 months ago

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1Z

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Don't use a soft, tin cure silicone for concrete if you want your molds to last a dozen castings, kids. You also probably need less than half that much material if you make your mold boxes the same rough shape as the individual diamonds instead of one giant ass rectangle full of negative space.

And if you're already going to order big tubs of Smooth-On products, just add a pack of XTC-3D to the shipment and save yourself the headache of Bondo.

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Luke Haney

9 months ago

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Z

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This seems to be more of a fire decoration than a fire pit. It's not even a pit. Apart from aesthetically maybe being pleasing, I don't get what putting 37 decorative pieces around a fire gets you that is superior to a true fire pit. I think someone just wanted to make something.

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