SoliForum - 3D Printing Community — Smoothing prints

Re: Smoothing prints

null@example.com (scobo) — Thu, 27 Nov 2014 18:11:48 +0000

I had a go with a paint marker pen filled with acetone today.
Waste of time, frankly. You'd be as well using a brush.
The vapour treatment is far more effective and quicker, IMO.

Re: Smoothing prints

null@example.com (accusedmonk) — Mon, 24 Nov 2014 09:05:57 +0000

I'm really terrible at painting... Really, this is not something I'm good at. But to be fair it's my first attempt so bear with me. The print is smooth though, so the resin works!

Re: Smoothing prints

null@example.com (accusedmonk) — Mon, 24 Nov 2014 08:03:09 +0000

I'm testing out a method with resin casting. I'm mixing a small amount and painting the resin onto the surface, which gives a nice smooth end result. There are two problems so far though, the resin does not bond to pla, i'm not sure about abs. The other problem is the resin that i'm using has a pot life of about 3 minutes. So once I mix it I only have about 2.5 mins to slap it on a surface.

This should work out fine for me personally, because the part I'm printing out isn't going to be the end product, I'm casting it. So even though I don't get a strong material bond, it's enough for me to have a smooth finish for making a mold with. Much cheaper printing one part, doing most of the finishing work on it, then making a mold for however many.

Please ignore the crappy print, I have to redial in my entire machine from a bunch of recent changes i've done. Anyway, clearly my crappy paint job looks crappy. Never had a customer ask for a part to be painted so I guess it's time to start now. The painted one is just that, nothing done except I put a weak coat of acrylic on it. The other one I painted with resin to smooth it, and it's got a coat of primer on it. It's very easy to lose detail with the resin though, it starts out with a low viscosity but very quickly starts gelling and then hardening. I'll post another picture after I paint it.

Re: Smoothing prints

null@example.com (darkhawk) — Sun, 23 Nov 2014 21:44:47 +0000

Yeah. Supposedly the filabot pen is pretty good though. I'm just not sure if it'll be worth it compared to the xtc3d.

I'm sure I'll end up trying both eventually. Right now I'm finishing up a Halo hand gun print that I used wood filler and a bunch of sanding on to smooth out, and while the results are generally acceptable, they take quite a bit of work to get done.

Re: Smoothing prints

null@example.com (scobo) — Sun, 23 Nov 2014 09:24:53 +0000

I use acetone vapour at the moment with pretty good results but it is a bit tricky to get right with some parts and I'm looking for an alternative too.
I'd be interested to hear if xtc-3d is any good too although I can only find one supplier in the UK and the postage is a ridiculous amount.
Apparently, the filabot smoothing pen is just a refillable paint marker pen which you by much cheaper.

Smoothing prints

null@example.com (darkhawk) — Sat, 22 Nov 2014 23:02:43 +0000

So one of the biggest problems *I* personally have is how unfinished the prints look when they come out. I've tried the many various methods to try and smooth them out a bit....

1. Acetone vapor/brushing it on
2. Woodfiller and sanding
3. Just sanding

The results vary on effectiveness, but so far I like the woodfiller method best. Acetone vapor/brushing works OK, but it's not that great in my opinion.

However I recently found this.....
http://www.reynoldsam.com/product/xtc-3 … aign=XTC3D

Has anyone tried this? Just curious. I'll probably try it out in a few weeks.

I realize that there is a 3D smoothing pen out there too somewhere. http://www.filabot.com/products/smoothi … =769937541
Has anyone used that and how effective is it? How long does it last?

Just trying to get an idea.
Some of the reason for getting the Da Vinci was for printing out COSPLAY parts, and unfortunately they don't look very good without some amount of finishing. The methods listed towards the top are still time consuming, to the point that I question how much cheaper and less time consuming it is to do it while maintaining some amount of detail.