Baking / Annealing two parts together

[sensebellum 2]

I am interested in baking, or technically annealing, 3D printed parts.

I would like to make a detailed and patterned mesh. Something like a bug screen on a window. I need it to be much larger than the print bay though.

So I was thinking of printing out sections and overlapping the edges, putting a glass panel on the surface, and trying to bake or "fuse" them through heat. Given the correct heat and duration I am thinking this would be possible. Especially in something that lays flat.

I was thinking of glue but it makes a terrible mess and blocks the fine mesh holes.

Thanks for any tips or ideas.

 

[jonnybischof 60]

I've once had a large, flat part that I printed in PLA. It warped quite badly, so I wanted to flatten it by heating it up with a hot-air gun and pressing it between two flat surfaces.

It was a very bad idea, the part deformed horribly and was completely useless afterwards.

Just repeated this with a scrap part for you

So, baking the whole part / assembly will probably not work.

If you can apply the heat only locally to where you want to fuse the material together, then it may work. You can use a soldering iron for example. But I always used that technique to quickly "deform" parts. Not to bond two pieces together.

I've bought a 3Doodler and wanted to use it as a plastic welding machine, but haven't actually tried it yet... (The 3Doodler is CRAPPY)

/edit:

If you secure the parts in between two large glass plates so that they cannot deform, it might actually work just fine!

 

[jhertzberg 19]

You can try friction welding. Take a short length of filament and use it as a bit in a rotary tool. http://hackaday.com/2012/12/31/make-your-own-plastic-friction-welder/. Wear eye protection.

 

[nallath 1,120]

I've had some succes with a gas soldering iron. The one I have has a pretty nice (flat) tip. It gives the same marks as metal welding does. In most cases it's not as strong as alternatives (glue, screws, etc).

 

[sensebellum 2]

Great ideas guys. I am going to try the soldering iron first and see if the flat edge can weld much. If that doesn't work I may move up to the glass sheets - I will advise

 

[ea407 0]

I have used a soldering iron to join two parts with success. Just take a piece of filament and use this as your "welding rod" to liquefy and fill in the crevice that will be created. Aside from 3D prints I've used this technique to hack weld pcv pipe to each other.