Topic: Acetone Bath in Ricecooker
Just scored a rice cooker on eBay used with water stains in the pot for $4.00 w/ free shipping. Talked the guy down from $15.00 because it had water stains and was banged up, but it's fine for heating up acetone. ![]()
Anyway so it's working great to smooth out parts. But I'm having a problem and hoping someone has a solution!
On flatter, bigger parts, they stick too well to the rice cooker pan. If I let it to sit in there to dry, it ruins the bottom surface because it has stuck too long to the metal pan. I tried adding kapton tape to the metal pan but while the acetone is cooking, the hot vapor just makes the kapton tape come unstuck and get bubbles/ridges in it which actually makes the bottom of the print worse.
On smaller prints with less surface area, like a model of a cow that I made it was fine because I put the cow in the cooker standing up, and only the bottom of its hooves were touching so it came off really easily.
If I can pull the part out within a few minutes of vaping, while it's still very soft, it doesn't stick. The problem is when I pull it out the part is so soft that it leaves marks on the print where I touched it. So I have to let it sit.
Any solutions?
My process:
1) Fill cooker up until bottom of pot is covered with acetone.
2) Put part on the top pan
3) Turn cooker on
4) Cook for 3-5 minutes, usually this is enough to completely evaporate all acetone in the pot and make the part nice and shiny
5) turn off pot
6) let part dry, usually for about an hour
