1 Topic by helagak

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Topic: Finishing prints?

Hi all. Allow me to introduce myself. I am Bob. I have a SD3 on order (finally pulled the trigger!) I have been following different forums and issued and methods that people have with 3d printing. I am very impressed with what I have seen of solidoodle machines. I have a question however about finishing prints.
I see a lot of people use acetone baths or vapor to smooth out visible lines. Has anyone tried bead blasting prints to achieve the same effect? I was considering investing in a blast cabinet from harbor freight and using a plastic medium. I figure I have the time to save up a couple bucks to buy one since I still have a 2+ month wait for my printer to arrive. :-\
So.... Thoughts?

2 Reply by cmetzel

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Re: Finishing prints?

I've tried hobby glass etching with compressed air but it didn't budge it.  I think sandblasting would work.  Somewhere on here IanJohnson tried tumbling with a setup in his dryer with no heat.  Maybe search on tumbling or dryer or finishing to see if you can find it

3 Reply by jooshs

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Re: Finishing prints?

I've been using the blast cabinet from harbor freight with crushed walnut shells. It gives it a very cool matte finish. I posted about it a while back.  You have to use a couple of extra shells to make sure blasting doesn't go through to the interior. I may try plastic beads if I can find them. Although, I dread the day I'd have to clean out the crushed walnut shells from my cabinet.

4 Reply by nickythegreek

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Re: Finishing prints?

joosh,

Could you use the ABS pellets that we are using in the filastruder thread?  They are pretty cheap and you will get so much reuse.  You could get clear, white or black too.  So that way you might even be able to polish it with plastic pellets of the same color of the print.

5 Reply by jooshs

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Re: Finishing prints?

Where are you guys getting your pellets from?  What size are they?  They only problem with this idea is the pellets would definitely break down so they'd have to be replaced regularly.  Still might be worth it though. Probably need 5-10 gallons to start with. Maybe 10-20 pounds?

6 Reply by elmoret

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Re: Finishing prints?

jooshs wrote:

Where are you guys getting your pellets from?  What size are they?  They only problem with this idea is the pellets would definitely break down so they'd have to be replaced regularly.  Still might be worth it though. Probably need 5-10 gallons to start with. Maybe 10-20 pounds?

eBay. $2.50/lb, shipped. Roughly 3mm x 3mm x 3mm.

Filastruder - the robust, inexpensive filament extruder
E3Dv6 All Metal Hotend - the premier 3D printing hotend

7 Reply by cmetzel

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Re: Finishing prints?

I think they're too big for what you're doing with them unless you have only larger prints

8 Reply by jooshs

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Re: Finishing prints?

cmetzel wrote:

I think they're too big for what you're doing with them unless you have only larger prints

Sounds like it. They are way too big. They do sell less aggressive plastic blasting beads, but the walnut shells are softer than even those.

9 Reply by jon_bondy

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Re: Finishing prints?

cmetzel wrote:

Somewhere on here IanJohnson tried tumbling with a setup in his dryer with no heat.

I tried a Harbor Freight vibratory tumbler with ceramic media, but after an hour or so, there was very little change in the surface.  The acetone vapor bath works well, but you only get one shot.  First time, I had too much acetone in the bottom, and when I heated it up, it expanded and bathed the foot of the print in pure acetone.

10 Reply by IanJohnson

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Re: Finishing prints?

One hour is never enough to do anything with tumbling.  I ran for 5-6 hours with mine, which was annoying because my dryer can't be set for more than 45 minutes at a time.  Also tumbling is only suitable more robust parts.  I think it can make a good companion to acetone vapor however.  Use the vapor to remove the layer lines, and then tumble to get a matte finish if you want it.  You can walk away from the tumbler, but the bead blaster takes a lot of time and effort to get a consistent finish.

11 Reply by solijohn

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Re: Finishing prints?

IanJohnson wrote:

One hour is never enough to do anything with tumbling.  I ran for 5-6 hours with mine, which was annoying because my dryer can't be set for more than 45 minutes at a time.  Also tumbling is only suitable more robust parts.  I think it can make a good companion to acetone vapor however.  Use the vapor to remove the layer lines, and then tumble to get a matte finish if you want it.  You can walk away from the tumbler, but the bead blaster takes a lot of time and effort to get a consistent finish.

This is as we suspected. I think the acetone bath is best option at this point.

Former Solidoodle employee, no longer associated with the company.

12 Reply by ronsii

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Re: Finishing prints?

I thought I would revisit this thread as I finally got a chance to throw some parts in one of the smaller finishers I have. This part was in for 3.5 hours the media is porcelain burnishing 1/8 angle cut cylinders... I know not the best media for first cut but the other parts like it smile The pics show a before(left) and after(right) while these are two different parts they looked identical to start with. If I get a chance I will throw a part in some of the first cut media we use for flatter items as it works a lot faster on larger items like this smile

http://i.imgur.com/T1dHqvG.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/HbwME3C.jpg

13 Reply by jooshs

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Re: Finishing prints?

Are you sure before wasn't on the right?  That looks great!

14 Reply by ronsii

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Re: Finishing prints?

Very sure smile the one on the right is just showing precession you normally would not notice until the surface gets knocked down.

15 Reply by jooshs

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Re: Finishing prints?

smile  same thing happens with the blaster if you don't have enough perimeters. Your print on the left looks great!  Is that .1mm?

16 Reply by ronsii

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Re: Finishing prints?

I printed these at .3mm for the z and  5 perimeters if I was to leave them in another 8-10 hrs. the valleys would start to dissapear as it is just a matter of taking the surface down another .025-.035 mm's to match up with the depth of the lines smile

17 Reply by ronsii

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Re: Finishing prints?

Just to illustrate the point, here is a pic of the exact same grip in the above pic on the left... I took a strip of 180..220 grit sandcloth and gave it about 15 seconds of sanding right there in the center front... see how the lines show up smile

http://i.imgur.com/vGFHbkT.jpg