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[daneel]

I wanted to try casting a small obsidian tower. Only done this once before back in 40d.

Instead of building a mold around it I tried instead to build two 10x10 reservoirs 13 z-levels up in the air, magma on top of water, with bridges for floors. The idea was that opening both bridges simultaneously releases the magma and water and when both touch the ground they should combine into obsidian.

No, I didn't really expect this to work very well. Some tiles only get floors rather than blocks and some don't get anything.



Has anyone figured out a better way of doing this without building a mold around the tower?

[Girlinhat]

Build a mold - but do it right.  If you're making a 3x3 tower, make a 7x7 mold.  That is, you need one extra obsidian wall on each side.  Make your mold out of traditional walls, and do a traditional mold.  Cast your obsidian by pumping water and magma through the walls in alternating patterns.  When you're done, deconstruct your pumps, it's about to get dwarfy.

That extra wall of obsidian on each side?  Have a miner channel that out.  You should be left with a free-standing obsidian block inside a hollow box.  Now deconstruct the bottom layer of the mold.  The whole thing will collapse at once, bringing the whole mold down in an instant and leaving you with an obsidian block.

Test this myself, seems to be the most convenient way for large-scale obsidian casting, although you do atom-smash a lot of material with the deconstruction, loose stone is usually very plentiful.