zhrodague

This is the description for a method of printing on concrete or cement with a concrete or cement ink. This is a DIY hacker project concept that has resolved itself into something large enough to write down.

I intend to print on concrete for the purpose of creating tiles for the garden or patio which contain a continuous image across the tiles. I propose to use a generic form of cement that is very cheap, and can be cured in a tile-shaped mold. This cement should be easily mixed with an ink or concrete dye, which can then be squirted onto the top of the initial tile mold. Images can be pre-rendered, and sequentially printed onto the tiles in order to make a larger collective image.

The Medium

The medium is actually a tile, or more accurately, a mold with some cement in it. I imagine the mold will be made out of plywood for the bottom, and flat-cornered wood for the sides. Let's talk about a mold handling a tile that is 1 foot square, and three inches deep. The mold should be held together at the (mitred?) corners by screws, which can be undone to remove the tile from the mold. A wet cement should be poured into this mold, leaving enough space at the top to accomodate the additional cement

The Image

I intend to use Fractint to generate the 1-bit zebra pattern that has been my favorite type of image to print. Photos or other psychedelic imagery can alternately be printed.

The Ink

Cement is easily attainable at local hardware stores in giant bags for very cheap. I recommend using a cement with no gravel, and little sand. I expect to use a wet cement, and let it cure for a long time -- the cement will have to be somewhat runny in order to fit through a nozzle, even one as wide as a nickel! Since I have not experimented with this medium before, there are a lot of things I need to figure out in order to deal with various problems.

The Ink Head

I expect to actuate a caulking-gun, and fill the caulking gun with a wet cement which has a dye in it. There are two ways this can work: 1 - a specific ammount of cement can be extruded from the printing head and be cut-off. The resulting cylinder of cement will either settle into a flat surface, or it can later be tamped-down. This will result in a lower DPI. 2 - the wet cement can more easily squirt out of the printing head and settle into a flat surface. This method should yield a higher DPI. 3 - The cement dye can be applied to the freshly poured cement waiting in the mold. This may produce the highest DPI.

Page Orientation

The printer will have to be aligned to where the top left corner of the page is. There will also be a need to setup the printer to deal with the lower-right of the printing page. Since most printers already deal with a method of locating the zero-point, either a microswitch or interrupt switch, a similar method of locating the width and height of the page will be employed. I expect to print 'full bleed' on the tile, meaning the largest possible print area that the tile will support -- edge to edge.

Head Positioning

Like a standard inkjet, the head is going to have to travel left to right, return to zero, step itself down a notch (line feed) and print another row.

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