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Author Topic: Smoothing 3d printed surfaces?  (Read 2163 times)

Offline Verderer

  • Mad Scientist
  • Posts: 964
Re: Smoothing 3d printed surfaces?
« Reply #15 on: November 30, 2018, 06:19:35 AM »
Interesting, but these models are resin castings of 3D printed originals (I think). So would the acetone trick work here, I think not? ???

Anyways, thanks for the ideas. I will certainly by so LGS  from my, er... LGS to try out. And I can get Mr. Surfacer when I order some other modelling stuff from a certain webshop.

I examined the models more closely, I have three different ones. And they don't all show the lines so badly, and it looks like on one of them the manufacturer had done some cleaning up too. The two others are pretty bad, in that they look like they require a lot of elbow grease to get every line out by scraping and sanding. So certainly some kind of leveling agent would make things easier.

Offline zemjw

  • Supporting Adventurer
  • Scatterbrained Genius
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  • Posts: 2091
    • My blog
Re: Smoothing 3d printed surfaces?
« Reply #16 on: November 30, 2018, 09:14:32 AM »
There are two main types of filament used in FDM printing (motlen plastic extruded through a nozzle rather than resin cured in SLA printers)(*)

ABS can use the acteone vapour bath treatment, but PLA can't (apparently you would need something like chloroform for PLA, and that's not something you can nip down to Boots for ;D). Most videos I've watched and articles I've read have suggested the varnish method to smooth PLA. I have't tried that, as I'm concerned it would swamp small details.

* other acronyms are available - see https://all3dp.com/1/types-of-3d-printers-3d-printing-technology/ for more information than is probably good for you

Offline carlos marighela

  • Elder God
  • Posts: 10763
  • Flamenguista até morrer.
Re: Smoothing 3d printed surfaces?
« Reply #17 on: December 01, 2018, 03:19:26 AM »
You just know with the average wargamer that they would experiment with chloroform, whether by accident or design, upon themselves. I see an addition to the modelling accidents thread coming up.  :)
Em dezembro de '81
Botou os ingleses na roda
3 a 0 no Liverpool
Ficou marcado na história
E no Rio não tem outro igual
Só o Flamengo é campeão mundial
E agora seu povo
Pede o mundo de novo