Acetone Finishing on PLA

[TheDeugd 18]

Hi @cloakfiend

I'll try to create a script tonight to convert most images. As HTML is not allowed in the new forum we'll have to translate those to BBcode since the old imported topics contain HTML.

Thanks a lot! I always wondered ho9w to post images without html here. Can videos be embedded also? not too bothered about that though.

Will post new prints soon.....

You can easily embed YouTube or Vimeo videos by using the video button in the editor and pasting the URL, like so:

 

[cloakfiend 995]

OK, done a whole load this weekend, now im waiting for the undercoat to harden, and they'll be done, but on one thing i did notice, is that something with the undercoat spray reacted with the first print i did with 0.8mm shell for the trex, and it just started cracking insanely, so that has now become a salvage job, but might look cool due to the randomization of the cracks. Ill post most later. The others seem unaffected by the spray. all colorfabb filament. Going ultra thin on the bases has left me with warped bases, but i dont really care i can always put them on new ones. Some 123D catch friends, and a cleaned up versions of a few models i have laying around.

Edited May 18, 2015 by Guest

[cloakfiend 995]

OK just thought I would show you what the t-rex cracking looked like, in case thats a look youre going for?

This is a result of over acetone dipping. These were dipped then dried then dipped again, and again. looked ok at the time, but as soon as i sprayed on undercoat i saw these split marks showing up.

[cloakfiend 995]

More acetone photos of Dark green PLA. Did not remove the lines and stay green.

Went totally white and not particularly smooth either, but maybe as i didnt want to get th base warped i may have held it under for too ling. but eitherway its getting painted now, as it still did enough smoothing to paint.

and some painted sutff too....

[ianmcmill 0]

This is the most definite guide to blow yourself (and the house) up or lose the skin and flesh on your face. Or getting a hypersensitivity towards aceton. Fast.

[cloakfiend 995]

Lol, you couldn't be further from the truth mate....

maybe thats what you think because i have literally posted my entire experience and attempts/successes/fails/everything and observations. I thought that's what this place was for, i dont do things like the very first video post i made on this subject, and after i do a new tutorial i will delete this entire thread, as people still mail be about safety nonsense that doesnt apply like wearing gloves and doing it outside and blah blah. The way i do it now has zero danger levels and i still consider it to be the ONLY method of clearing those nasty lines the best i can. Id still reccomend a bit of sanding depending on your models wobble factors during printing though as if your model is thin then it maybe jiggle if there is fine detail in it and the head moves a lot.

As I have said so many times in the past. These next pictures illustrate the WORST surface quality you will achieve via my 'safe' acetone method, followed by a spray undercoat (very thin) and one spray coat of gold. The model is printed at 60microns 35mm/s UM blue PLA went a bit thin on the shell (forgot to change my settings back) and a 9 hr print. If you can beat that with no sanding or filler in 25 seconds then show me and ill ditch the acetone.

These are in reflective gold taken next to my lit fireplace! oooooooooh danger acetone. Gold is used as reflective materials bring out the lines most, so if it looks good shiny then you know its good.

To get it perfect you need to do a touch of sanding after the inital undercoat as you wont see the lines until you spray the model, no matter how perfect you think it looks. Its not.

[cloakfiend 995]

Ok here is my latest print of my first Zbrush mashup model after acetoning for 1 minute. i do 1 minute for colorfabb as its not as diissolvable as UM PLA. The model is hollow and shell 1.2. it cracked after the acetone treatment as the layer must have been disturbed by the building air conditioning during print or some other factor. This is my first attempt at filling a hole with putty. Im using milliput, reguler, maybe should have gone superfine, but ill see how this turns out after a quick sand down when its dry.

[cloakfiend 995]

Well turns out it split even more as a result of the spray paint or something and the putty just wasnt up to fine sanding and didnt stick well enough. Ill need something more resiny and gluey to fill that annoying split i may wait for it to settle and come back in a few days, as acetone in pla needs some time to cure, and i didnt wait more than an hour after the dip before spraying it. But other than the crack im very happy with the result of the acetone as with the help of some utra fine sanding before the acetone in problem areas the model looks almost flawlessly smooth.

[cloakfiend 995]

OK as i got a bit drunk yesterday and really couldn't be bothered getting rid of the line as I had already undercoated it and then sprayed it gold. I thought I'd just print another out and see if it splits. as well, if so i need to figure out why. But i think the filler would be easier to work into the plastic when there is no paint on it.? its just a clean test.

[jeex 35]

Thanks for the reply on the other post.

Looks very nice. I read about people vaporizing Acetone for fine result. Also people using stuff called THF (break cleansing fluid if i'm not mistaking). But after seeing your images, i'll certainly try this recipe.

[cloakfiend 995]

Do it! once you get the hang of it, you will only use this method. Just try to avoid getting the acetone on your hand as it melts the PLA sometimes and when you touch it, it smudges the model and sticks to your hand, (like what happens with the ABS but much less) and if you don't touch it, its 100% safe if your're doing it outside (for the health and safety purists!). You can touch the model after like a minute or so after dipping it, so its much easier than ABS, and leaving it for a few more seconds will not do drastic damage to the detail unlike ABS.

Here is the head in UM blue, this material has NEVER cracked on me so im going to dip it tonight just to prove it and to get it as smooth as i can. The bottoms of the ears are messed up as i forgot to put the supports during modelling.

P.S. if you want ZERO lines or as close as you can get to zero (because there will aways be VERY faint lines), im afraid you will need to spend at least a few minutes with very fine sandpaper on the problematic areas (i used 400 and 600, that way you cant really oversand as its too fine. You'll learn how to identify them merely by looking at your model in different angles in the light relly close up. Good luck!

Edited June 15, 2015 by Guest

[cloakfiend 995]

Heres is the same face after acteone. Ill spray it tomorrow just in case it cracks as i dipped it just an hour ago and i want to let it sit overnight, but im pretty sure with UM blue ill be safe as houses.

Looks real good to me, but we can only see after the undercoat! Right now, who knows? lol. (well i do)

[cloakfiend 995]

Here is the face after a quick undercoat this morning, i was in a ruch so just slapped a bit on and took a blurred photo!

Job done, no cracks!

[cloakfiend 995]

OK now im having my first attempt at joining pieces together and acetoning them afterwards. I used Maya to slice the models, and some araldite 5 mins to join them as when i tried with superglue it did not give me enough time to align them by eye and i ended up tearing them apart. Will post the dip results after i clean them up as because they are slightly melted to the base i have some sanding to do on the joins. not to much though. Really happy with the detail in the gnomes face.

[cloakfiend 995]

Ok here are the results... the joining was not as easy as i thought and im just being lazy again and not using some putty that arrived today to fill in the gaps as i cant be bothered again. Its just a test ill do it when i really need to. They good ok before the acetone, but after a dip the robot opened up a millimeter on one side so i decided to leave it i haven't dipped the gnome yet. I also show you the face after the paint dried. I dropped the robot in by mistake and hand to put my hand into the acetone, but im lucky to be alive after that so try not dropping anything into the acetone if you are not wearing safety gloves. I did initially wear them, but i needed more grip so just took them of as acetone is pretty harmless if you dont drop things a lot in it and have to put your hand in it. (please allow the saftey comments im not in the mood) and i ran out of primer in case you are wondering why i dint finish the UM bot.

Im not gonna post anymore on this thread, i think i've covered everything. Ill do a video next.

Edited June 19, 2015 by Guest

[cloakfiend 995]

OK, im doing a tut from start to finish including the acetone and spray painting, so once i finish, i guess the mods can delete the portion of this thread before it.

Part 1 loading your model in cura from your 3D app.

 

[cloakfiend 995]

Ok i deleted the next step off my SD card by accident, but all you do is pop in the SDcard, remember your amount of filament which was 4.25 Meters (425cm) and add on the length of the bowden tube then cut it off the roll, sharpen the tip as if you were doing an atomic pull (i also have a video showing you this) and then balance it on the back filament holder and click change material and feed it in making sure the filament is facing the right way when you feed it in. Make sure the bowden tube is not connected as if it goes into the head then by the time you click print, the material will be blocked inside the nozzle due to the badcoupler. You'll see the setup in the vid anyways. Ill do proper vids once i do the roughs so i know what to improve for the next time.

Heres a little vid in case you have no idea how ive done the filament. Feel free to measure it how you like,i just find i cant use a tape measure as the filament starts curling too much to measure when i've unrolled too much of it.

 

Anyways, here how i kick off a print, i should have called it part 2 but...i didn't lol.

Part 2: kicking off the print (after loading the material with a pre-prepped base)

 

Edited June 25, 2015 by Guest

[cloakfiend 995]

Ok all done and looking good, some weird little artifacts here and there but next stage is cleanup and then.......yep........NEW PLA ACETONE BATH TUTORIAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YAY!

Heres the finished model on the printer.

And i also got my new PTFE coupler which i may be installing soon as i have seen a few weird artifacts, but ill do more prints to be sure!

my old one here for comparison sake.

[SandervG 1,521]

Ok all done and looking good, some weird little artifacts here and there but next stage is cleanup and then.......yep........NEW PLA ACETONE BATH TUTORIAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YAY!

Heres the finished model on the printer.

And i also got my new PTFE coupler which i may be installing soon as i have seen a few weird artifacts, but ill do more prints to be sure!

my old one here for comparison sake.

 

If indeed it is leaning to the left.. aren't your thumbscrews too tight?

No need in overtightening, in fact.. it does more wrong than right so make sure they are tight, like there is no play but don't overdo it.

[cloakfiend 995]

I have no idea what the thumb screws are to be honest, i haven't touched anything on the printer other than the feeder which I unscrewed once and put on backward by mistake, but thats back on ok now. I guess when I have some serious print issues, i'll come here for help, but it appears to still be chugging along at the moment.

P.S. can i damage any other parts of the printer by continuing to print with my failing coupler? Are the thumb screws going to warp or get damaged in any way.

Edited June 24, 2015 by Guest

[SandervG 1,521]

The thumbscrews are the 4 big screws keeping your printhead together.

They go in from the top, one in each corner. Maybe they (on the back) are too tight?

They are metal so they won't warp or anything.

'P.S. can i damage any other parts of the printer by continuing to print with my failing coupler? ' Not really. You have a higher risk of under extrusion and that may annoy you or interfere with your experience but it doesn't really damage any other parts. If, in order to keep it printing, you have to remove the bowden tube every print the bowden tube and the clip holding it may show some signs of wear.

The clip has small metal grippers inside that hold the bowden tube in place. By removing the bowden tube every time those grippers may wear down the bowden tube on the outside.

This will make the tube smaller, until the point they have less grip and can't hold it anymore.

The bowden tube will move up, maybe a small bit, making room for your filament to expand between the bowden tube and teflon coupler, or even move further up.

The grippers in the clip can also bend, reducing the grip they have.

Note: This won't happen with regular use, or even a little bit more frequent removal of the bowden tube, but doing this every day might does. Don't panic, just keep an eye on it.

[cloakfiend 995]

OK heres my latest Atomic Pull method, using much cooler temps, as suggested by GR5, works much better, and every time as well. Vid is only 2mins30 so super short, and no time wasting!

Still use my pliers though!

 

[memory556 18]

OK heres my latest Atomic Pull method, using much cooler temps, as suggested by GR5, works much better, and every time as well. Vid is only 2mins30 so super short, and no time wasting!

Still use my pliers though!

 

 

Super helpful video. Glad to know that I wasn't too far off from doing atomic pulls, but this is a very helpful video. Thank you!

[cloakfiend 995]

Ok Acetone vid is done, uploading now, here are my results in the meantime. Ignore the scratch marks, you wont see them once painted, its like residue, but super smooth. Just looks kinda weird when you run your nails on it.

And the back for those interested.

Edited June 25, 2015 by Guest

[cloakfiend 995]

Ok heres my acetone video. And in my opinion, you are not gonna get any smoother than this without a ton more work or money buying filler and resins.

Sorry about my knee, lol.

 

Edited June 25, 2015 by Guest