As for the solidoodle - I personally got the SD3 and I'm very happy for the full 8" bed. I spent like $15 at the local surplus store for some acrylic sheets and drilled/tapped the edges of the case & acrylic and just mounted the panes on hinges to the case (had to print a few corners to make a nice raised roof). Another $5 for 2 glass beds, $25 for a 100 yard 8" roll of kapton tape, and I was in business. But I'm also upgrading my power supply entirely soon which will lean close to $100 with the supply, fuse box, screw terminals, etc. But that isn't strictly necessary.

How difficult is it to remove a print from the slurried bed?  I use glass with hairspray with fair results, but large prints still lift for me.  I'd like to try the slurry to see whether it works out better, but do t want to sacrifice a piece of glass if I can't get it off!

I does stick very well. Sometimes too well. But that is why I use a razor scraper. Even the most stubborn print comes off quickly and fairly easily.

Cool, thanks. I picked up some acetone today and some cheap PVC pipe joiners - guess I just dunk one in a jar and wait for it to dissolve, right? Any issue with storing it for a while? How often do you paint your bed? After every print? Once a week/month/year?

I appreciate the info! Trying to get everything ready for arrival day so I can drop the first print ASAP. My SD2's been "in production" for about 2 1/2 weeks now...

PVC isn't going to do it... you need ABS, the material you're going to be using to print with.  In this case you'll have to wait until you have the ABS to use unless you know someone who has some to give you.

I paint my bed every time I get a clear spot on the glass (and you'll want to do the glass mod as it will help with the bed leveling + you'll be able to swap out pieces of glass for faster part turnaround).  This occurs when I do larger pieces and it pulls up the abs I've laid down.  For smaller parts I don't usually bother.

So long as you keep it covered (and the container is airtight) it should keep for quite a while.

The glass mod mentioned above is simple.  Go out and get a couple pieces of glass the size of your bed (6x6 in this case) and a couple of binder clips, then clip the glass to the steel bed.  You'll need to re-adjust your z-level so the bed is level and it doesn't crash into the bed and crack the glass.  Doing this immediately will allow you to level the bed before you even start printing.  Some people use hairspray on both the top and the bottom of the bed (top to get the print to stick to the glass and bottom to get the glass to stick to the bed), but if you plan on using the slurry and binder clips you won't need to use anything like it.  You'll find that it's the most useful and economical mod you'll find.  Search the forum for 'glass' and you should find more information.

Check your PMs...

I appreciate the info! Trying to get everything ready for arrival day so I can drop the first print ASAP. My SD2's been "in production" for about 2 1/2 weeks now...

It's not really a science, but I melt enough so that the mix gets pretty milky and opaque (probably about 2 oz of acetone to about 2-3 g of ABS) but YMMV... The acetone evaporates leaving the ABS in the mix to bond.  This stuff can also be used to bond 2 parts together and holds better than crazy glue since the plastic in the slurry bonds to the parts while slightly melting the part to form almost a contiguous piece.

Hope it helps.

Oh, and don't worry about igniting the acetone.  I paint a hot bed all the time and I haven't set it on fire yet.

Er. :)

Curious to learn more about the slurry... can you point me to the discussion or further info? If it's manageable, maybe it will work. I'm eventually going to need to print stencils larger than the bed, and so I'll have to learn how to break them up into assembleable pieces, but I was hoping to get off the ground with some simple prints...

A suggestion made by a user was to use an acetone-ABS slurry and paint the part edges after the first layer (pausing it so that you could apply it).  This does work, but you're in for a bit of work to apply.  This would allow you to go to the max edge without a brim.  YMMV...

Oh, and don't worry about igniting the acetone.  I paint a hot bed all the time and I haven't set it on fire yet.

A little Z-axis warping would probably be manageable with clamping, unless it was really extreme, but X or Y-axis warpings or distortions would be harder to deal with. Do you have a sense of which is likely?

Is the unevenly-heated bed a solveable problem through mods of some kind? If that were somehow resolved, would the 6" edge-to-edge be possible? Or if not, how far in from the edges do you think you'd need to come to be in a safe zone?

If you are going to be printing many things 6x6 then you might consider trying to upgrade to an SD3 before they ship you your SD2.  Otherwise you are probably going to get frustrated making a 6x6 bed work for your application.

The bed is 6" x 6"; I'm wondering about the printable area. One of the first things I need to do is print some stencils, ideally 6" x 6" exactly (or within a very tight range, hopefully 1/32" or less). Can you print something 6x6" on the SD2? Or is the 6x6" bed a little larger than the actual printable area? What would be the dimensions of the biggest square you could print, say 1mm high?