I’ve always had a love/hate relationship with fruit, so anything to make it more appealing is a plus. I had seen cube shaped melons around the internet and wondered if I could do something similar with smaller fruits. What got me motivated was a new machine for my workshop – a Mayku FormBox desktop vacuum former. Ever since I was in school and used an industrial vacuum former, I had wanted one of these. And the FormBox is about the right size for my small workshop. So, I got to work 3D printing parts using my BambuLab X-1C to use as vacuum form moulds. I started on a small scale with strawberries. Most of the mould I printed were done using Polycarbonate filament for its superior heat resistance. I didn’t want the moulds to melt under the heat of the vacuum formed plastic (0.5 mm PET sheet).
The vacuum formed plastic is easy enough to trim with regular scissors and I drilled holes to accept 3 mm hardware. Mild steel at first, but then I switched to stainless for better weatherability. It was a little time-consuming fitting the moulds to the strawberries, but it was a small price considering that nature would do the rest of the work for me.
After a few weeks, I started to see some results from the strawberries, but I wasn’t overly happy with them. Some fruit shrivelled and others didn’t fill the mould entirely. It was the peak of summer and pretty tough growing conditions in their tiny plastic clothes! But I did get a glimpse of what was possible, I just needed to try some different fruits.
So, I moved on to citrus. Using a similar technique to the strawberry’s, I was able to design, print and vacuum form a variety of shaped moulds for mandarins, lemons and oranges. One of the trickier parts here was sizing the moulds correctly for the fruit to grow into, this was a bit hit and miss, with some fruit never fully growing into the mould.
There was a pretty low success rate, due disease, growth anomalies and plain old luck. But I was pleased with the handful of shaped citrus that I managed to harvest.
And while none of them were perfect (and maybe fruit shouldn’t have to be) one stands out as my favourite. The super mushroom orange. This thing was a beast! It outgrew the mould in a kind of grotesque way, but that’s why I love it.
