cloakfiend

ACETONE AND COLORFABB RED TR FILAMENT EXPLAINED AGAIN....HOPEFULLY A BIT BETTER Ok so I have a bit of time spare during my night shift so I thought I'd have another go at explaining how things work and how I go about my post processing as simply and clearly as I can. And by the way this focuses mainly on layer lines rather than top surfaces. Top surfaces will defo need a light sand to be perfect, and do it before the dip or brush. try to do as much sanding where you need it before! it will make your life easier later. Ok so first up, the whole PLA and acetone argument and purity of PLA and different filaments. I am not trying to say PLA smooths with acetone, because we all know that it doesn't. Some people seem to have some focus on the purity of PLA and wanting to acquire the purest form of PLA yet have no real idea of what EXACTLY is in the PLA they are using anyway which kind of defeats their argument to begin with. We are not buying narcotics here, so purity is not really a factor, but consistency of filament production is more important and that the manufacturers don't change the formulas half way through a batch as this will affect future post processing efforts. Colorfabb is NOT the only filament that smooths with acetone, many others do, but I am concentrating on Colorfabb because I know the filament well and their formulas are fairly consistent from using that brand for the past 3 to 4 years. The resolution you print at before applying the acetone is the most important factor. I print at 0.06 and find that although every line may not smooth perfectly due to serveral factors, clean up is FAR less painful and monumentally quicker that simply applying filler and sanding multiple times. Longer printing times mean smaller post production times, a lot smaller. Sometimes if I have even one error on a print I will print it again because I don't want to waste my time sanding and filling for hours on end. Top surfaces tend to look better printed in 0.06 anyways. Sanding.......yes you still have to sand your prints. But with much finer sand paper which makes sanding minimal and not a total pain in the arse. I don't like to apply any filler or topcoats of various materials, as I tend to plate my work and this is a pain to keep perfect in an acid tank as fillers usually absorb liquid and expand ruining any patches you may have fixed. To patch up small holes and seams I simply use superglue and activator and then sand it out. I find it much better than filler although much more difficult to sand down, but the advantage is that you will be able to sand it down perfectly and NOT see any seam whatsoever. Also superglue does not react to acid or other top coats. You can just spray primer and sand down the slight imperfections and it will usually be OK. No needs for stupid amounts of time wasted sanding. I've read people spend up to 3-5 hours just spraying and adding filler to a tiny ball type object.....total waste of time in my opinion Just print higher rez. Sanding soon after dipping or brushing will result in a powderless sand. As the PLA/PHA is still absorbing the acetone, it is much more flexible and it is kind of possible to rub the surface smooth with the sand paper in a way that you are sanding but merely rubbing the lines out with the sandpaper and not causing any actual damage. Its hard to explain but you will see what I mean if you try it. Doing this kind of sanding takes longer to the surface being more resilient to fine sandpaper but still vulnerable to markings from fingernails and sharp objects. Usually when you sand an object then you go through grades of sandpaper, but again this is simply not necessary if you acetone your prints as you are removing the need for the harsh grades and skipping straight to 240 or 320 or even 400. I tend to use the same piece of 240 for ages and this simply means that it turns into a finer grade by being used up. Using fresh sandpaper can often be too harsh on the surface. Warping You are literally breaking down the chemical composition of the plastic and relying on the excess to melt into the gaps between the layers. If you go to hard on small pieces they will warp. This shouldn't come as a surprise. Dont dip or brush on for too long. A few seconds is sometimes enough. More than 45 seconds is pushing it, and a few days or months down the line when the acetone has finally evaporated off or been absorbed, the model may plit crack or warp further. Whitening I believe this is some form of oxidisation, and if the acetone is left in tiny gaps, then the PLH/PHA impurities may collect and obstruct detailed areas (which is what you dont want), so make sure to coat the object evenly and not let the acetone sit for too long. It can look deceptively ruined, but a quick primer run will surprise you how its pretty much only superficial. If you need a clean look and are not spray painting it, go down the Ethyl Acetate route but again, its a different chemical so different rules apply for this, that im not getting into at the moment. I'll finish it there for now. But I hope that helps anyone out there to at least get started. Ill post a new vid applying to another large print and show you the results. And don't use nail varnish remover its too weak. use as close to 100% Acetone that you can get hold of. ....And dont blame me if it doesn't work for you. It just means you are doing something wrong! or for too long! Safety Note And remember have fun experimenting!!!! safely of course, if you find your throat hurting when you go to sleep, its because you were not wearing a protective mask, or the wrong one. Also remember nitrile gloves, but these are only effective for like 10 seconds.......so be quick! So do a test for yourself, Print a small object in 0.06 layer height in colorfabb TR red PLH/PHA and then dip half of it into acetone for like 10 secs and wait for the surface to harden. Then spray it with primer and see the results for yourself. However this isn't magic and if you are useless at post processing or light sanding then don't even bother and simply accept that your prints will have visible layer lines....and mine won't! ?

Dont worry about the shrinking too much but keep it in mind. No chemical is perfect unfortunately but acetone sure does the trick for me! I need to buy some more actually!!! Thanks for reminding me! A dip is very effective, but nowadays i brush more than i dip. But i still dip. Usually 10 - 15secs and see how it turns out after if im not happy ill do the next one longer... if it warps ill do it shorter....you get the jist! If you do a dip or brush you can tell how much has been absorbed by the coldness. The colder it is, the more acetone has been absorbed. If you want to test the shrinkage, print something flatish (not necesarily thin as i will warp) and the let it sit in acetone for 30 mins. I had a lid to a box shrink over 2cm width and height. But i deliberately tortured it with acetone. No other of my many dips and brushes on pla/pha has shrunk enough for me to notice! Use tr pla/pha for best results in my opinion. It sets quicker. Im going to post a new tut very soon, i recoded it agers ago but never got round to editing it yet!

Dont worry about producing STL files. Make OBJs instead in my opinion, I've not made one STL file since I bought my UM2.

just realised there is also a kman, is that an old profile?

Yes true! sculpting for fun is far better than for animation, I'll leave that to others, But you forgot to mention the layer height!! I hope my new revised model prints without failure, I may ask a few favours @kmanstudios and send you the cgode as I want to try it with PVA for the first time, but with good settings and you seem to use PVA a lot!!!

Oh my! I haven't posted on this thread for over 7 months! Unfortunately There is no magic amount of time, this is something you need to figure out as it ALWAYS depends on the material and stuff. I wish I could just say 10 seconds or 25 like I did before, or 45 seconds max like my old limit was. But I'm much more experienced in doing it now, its like cooking, I judge in the day and during the moment. Like a cook does adjust according to the weather or detail of the model as some parts might be too thin for a dip. I might use new acetone for some things and used dipping acetone for others. You really need to practice (safely of course). As for the whiteness thing, my perceived explanation is a bit too convoluted to explain here, but basically i think it is related to time of exposure to oxygen (and stuff) basically, you can use Ethyl acetate and wax if you dont want it, but again I now know the long term effects of acetone as I've used it for over 3 years now. (and i have no hypersensitivities or ill effects from it!) The other chems.... not so nice!!!! Ethyl acetate absolutely stinks and is a nastier version of acetone, and methylene cloride is not so bad. To all new people who don't want to read this entire thread, Acetone smooths PLA/PHA from colourfabb printed at 0.06 layer resolution in a way so that only a light sand is needed to remove imperfections. You will not need filler and sanding for many hours, that is why you are spending more time printing it out at 0.06! so you can do less manual labour!!!! To know how i apply it, just watch the vids and find a method that suits you. Acetone also makes your prints water tight, by changing the chemical makeup and also slightly shrinks compressing the form (not much unless you soak it for ages. it can also warp and split your models revealing any weak points! it will not split a good print if done correctly. The part is ready when it is hard and brittle BTW. But I like to work on it during its transformation phase as sanding is strange and leaves no scratched which makes clean up super easy. Unfortunately I have far too much to say on this topic and i feel im just making things more confusing! Feel free to ask but dont expect everything i say to make sense at first! Strange, my last post was edited by......GUEST?

That mondoshawan, looks metallic, duplo colour? or plate? or brassfill or? looks real nice.

Thanks for the kind words @kmanstudios, hopefully I'll have a few sexy prints to show ya'll soon; some urban stuff, some geeky stuff, and some arty stuff, and some personal stuff, I can't ever finish one I hope to do so very soon, I tried to print it so many times, I tried to print it back in the day when PVA was new but as it was on a beta UM3 that was not mine anyway I never got to see it finished as it kept failing every 10 minutes... now with an S5 lets hope it comes out ok and I actually get to see it before the world ends in two months odd, lol. The barbarian thing looks super cool and you are most certainly not simply a cartoonist! Not that that would be a bad thing anyways! You got skills man, or kman! I bet your meshes are clean and pretty. Mine are pure raw un-remeshed dynamesh scupts with zero edge loops and all, Your work also makes me think about my games workshop days and Warhammer. the amount of time i spent glueing sand to bases and removing flashes from cast lead figurines! My obsession with detail and surface quality, is that i have an older brother and back in the day when i was like 12 (long time ago....very) he would examine my work and insult me until it was perfect. I could only do so much as a 12 year old, and always admired amazing artists like Renaissance artists, and stuff like Classic revival architecture. Im a sucker for detail but only in the right places. Its only now that I can look at something and say, I could do that. but never really figured out why I couldnt do it before???? strange that huh? the moment you realise the many countless hours/days/years of practice have finally paid off doesn't really register. But the learning never ends, its such a pain.....whatever you want to make, you need to know its form and how it looks like from EVERY angle. I simply dont have enough time in my life to examine EVERYTHING I like. Some things I Iike more than others and Ill spend far more time researching and admiring them and that what makes us all unique. I dont quit regardless of how much time i waste as I only make things I like so I dont see it as time wasted, even if its a gift for someone I barely know. I get pleasure out of seeing people happy with the objects I give them, and even if they don't care much, I'm happy I made what I set out to make, as I always deliver on my promises. Unfortunately for me I make a lot of promises.....I've stopped making them so much now, as I have to wipe the slate clean and start some fresh projects. Sorry for the essay......as usual! and keep up the eternal practice!!! BTW what layer height is the batty print? im guessing 0.1? I want 0.06 how long would that take IYHO?

Good work kman! Keep it up! I have some catching up to do.... need to post a few things up to prove my existance lol.

Lets find out! ?

Dont worry kman if i hear BS ill call it out pronto!

Eitherway it reduces the polycount nicely ?.

Not sure about the 10% as its slider based to decimate as muchas you like. 99% if you want its very flexible when you want a target poly count. For printing, a lower polycount is more important than optimized mesh. None of my models are optimized! I dont retopo, Id be doing that all day. As soon as im done sculpting its off to cura. no creating edgeloops and all that...no time! Of course a poor mesh is useless as well, but I dont use low poly models at all for art. A clean mesh is good enough me thinks.

It will change you life! And everyone likes the term dynamesh for some reason, all my friends laugh when i say it, that and decimation, which is also an excellent poly reducing ZB function.

Yes i have it mac and pc. Works well on both.

It essentially reprojects a poly grid over your model and resets the polycount providing you with more polys on parts thay had very few after you moved them about.

Dynamesh is the shizzle my nizzle!

I never bothered with mud box. No dynamesh is a dealbreaker. That is the easiest way to merge objects in one click pretty much. If you want a particular proggie, let me know I could point you in a particular excellent direction...PM of course, I don't even upgrade my programmes, unless new features really impress me, I find all new software far too bloated and slow on my crappy laptop, however ZBrush still runs smooth as silk. So well written.

Easier than maya for certain. There is always a learning curve. Its mainly a sculpting proggie but can do hard edge as well. If you are into organic modelling you will love it. But obviously if you can't draw or visualise in your mind what you expect to create then dont bother. Zbrush throws about 15million polys like its nothing. And you can easily manipulate the model with no lag. If you are a loyal autodesk customer you can use mudbox i guess. But no dynamesh in mudbox so laters potatos! Im stucking with ZB. I dont even retopo some of my scans and rarely go above 50,000 - 200,000 polys per head. I use a cintique companion and do all my work on my sofa now. I spend my days on the computer at my desk at work so dont ever sit by my desk ay home. Nothing beats a tablet with buttons for modelling. Its why i hate apple. They think they are so smart removing buttons. Idiots is what they are.

If im feeling naughty ill post a tasteful nude but the model i scanned had features some would find too large to be tasteful.

I used to clean up head scans in maya or max, but they just arent geared for aggressive detail manipulation, so i switched to zbrush. I havent touched any other 3d app since. But i love sculpting and drawing anyways so i dont really care. cleaning up heads in zbrush is a breeze....if you have the reference photos that is to cross reference. Here is a head i made recently one of many....

I do admire a good piece of art. Nice vase! Its kind of what I give to people who ask if they can have a print, but I do faces so they make vases from unfinished or incomplete head prints. I've just done some x-rated scans for someone... but there is no way I could post the results here!!! ? The closeups are amazing even just to analyse!!! A friend of mine suggested I do scratch and sniff.....

Nice pineapple! very cool vase!

Ok heres my question, Was printing quicker and maintaining the same quality of prints ever explored? If not why not.? Also why does no one in filament exploration experiment making nice filaments that easily smooth with say...acetone. seeing as your filament back in 2016 was the best. Even better than colorfabb, as we (I) know the blends of pla and pha produce effortless amazing results. also are the fans on the Ultimaker S5 the same as on the Ultimaker 2 / 3? How do you decide to source a new part or continue to use an existing part?

I use a 0.4 nozzle at 0.06 layer height, and If I'm honest i think its good enough. I even printed at 0.04 but you get different problems and ringing gets worse so its a trade off. I personally think the 0.4mm is fine. depends how much time you have!.