Acetone Finishing on PLA

[danilius 118]

Also, here is a practical use of your sculpture, a coat hook. Or somewhere to hang up your carcasses, or parts thereof perhaps.

[cloakfiend 995]

Lol, yeah I knew the backfaces were intersecting, it was my first Zbrush attempt, and I did not know about the tools to slice things up with as i do now, and i only had my cintique Comp 2 and no 3d software on it apart from zbrush which im still trying to learn between an extremely busy job and hectic life. I extruded it in max BEFORE i imported it into ZB which was the problem. I don't do this anymore so that i can adjust the thickness in accordance to the size of the print. I have the clip tool. before id just mask and remove things in ZB which lead to intersections. Id just slap it in 3Dsmax now to shell it internaly and job done no need for any infill or support, BTW. i may install it tonight and just thrown it up to you imagine and be done with it.

That tongue would be a bit fragile to hang stuff off it. I was thinking of just making bigger teeth and using them as hooks, as they will grip more.

Edited September 21, 2015 by Guest

[danilius 118]

The tongue was there to inspire you to even greater heights.....

[cloakfiend 995]

Lol, this is my next personal project....almost done. but put on hold till my printer frees up. Love Gigers stuff, so inspiring. mines not quite the same, but close. the face is different more human and the eyes more real.

Edited September 24, 2015 by Guest

[KevinMakes 22]

 

I have a hard time seing this one done without atleast 30+ hours into the print... those height terminations can be quite messy. Granted I am not as familiar wint inorganic non flowing surfaces when it comes to printing. would be very interesting to see in a 3d format.

[cloakfiend 995]

I understand your concerns, lots of retractions, lol! but i'm happy to push the printer till it falls apart or even breaks as i'm getting good at repairing it, and its not mine after all, lol! I think many people are simply too afraid of trying stuff. Ill give it a go but am pretty confident it should look shit hot. If not, then the entire reason for me getting a 3D printer has been a fail. As this is my work printer, so i'm using it as a trial to see if it lives up to my expectations for me to personally buy one.

If I can print my next model with this printer, then I will be totally confident in assuring others that the sheer quality (not speed) is why this is one of the best printers out there. If I cant, well, then i need to look for a different printer, but the form 1 is a no go as its too expensive to run and im not sure how sandable the resin is afterwards, etc. maybe im wrong, eitherway ill find out in the next two months. Got tons of work on so wont have a chance to print this for a while, and i'm certainly not sending it to shape ways, as the cost for what i want is a joke.

I'd be very happy with a 30 Hour print. as long as its not over 48 hours, luckily I've solved my printing off the roll problem, so i just print on the roll now, and its all good. before id measure out the filament but now i don't need to, and print normally like everyone else.

[KevinMakes 22]

Haha, well once you get a 3d model built I could run an analysis against it to tell you the points that would be terminating at the same time, that way you could push them further back or forward in any ed modelling software to minimize that. (power surfacing with solidworks works well)

Let me know if you want any help.

[cloakfiend 995]

Cheers mate ill see how things go, im having trouble with putty warping all my flat objects at the moment. Pain it the arse. Flat thin stuff is just getting on my nerves at the moment especially if i need to get it ultra smooth. Acetone and all the various puttys i've tried that contain quick drying solvents are warping my objects, forcing me to print stuff in higher rez to avoid using filler and only sanding them. But to print large tall thin stuff in high rez (0.06)with perfect layer height means not getting a single jam or tangle and its always a bit of a gamble (which rhymes) especially if the printer is running for 15-30Hours.

Edited September 27, 2015 by Guest

[cloakfiend 995]

Colorfabb Warm Red in acetone for 40 seconds then sprayed with white gloss. no sanding or clean up at all.

ill leave him in for a minute next time and it should be better... but still, no lines.

Edited October 19, 2015 by Guest

[cloakfiend 995]

My new favourite filament to acetone smooth is Colorfabb Traffic Red. Unbelievable quality even at 50mm/s. No post work and such an amazing finish!!!!

high rez for you @danilius

Id recommend clean acetone, if it goes too white give it a few minutes and brush it off a bit with a toothbrush.

Edited October 19, 2015 by Guest

[cloakfiend 995]

I just had a chat with a nice fellow at fablablondon and will do a talk/demonstration about acetone smoothing PLA for those of you who are interested and living in the UK near london. Will be next month after my project most likely. Ill be talking about what filaments are the best how they differ, how long each filament needs and also talk about the different forms of clean up before and after the dips.

Ill keep you posted.

Edited October 19, 2015 by Guest

[KevinMakes 22]

I just had a chat with a nice fellow at fablablondon and will do a talk/demonstration about acetone smoothing PLA for those of you who are interested and living in the UK near london. Will be next month after my project most likely. Ill be talking about what filaments are the best how they differ, how long each filament needs and also talk about the different forms of clean up before and after the dips.

Ill keep you posted.

I would be interested! Please webcast the talk! Or record it for youtube.

[cloakfiend 995]

Here is an ULTRA close up of an acetone surface in extreme light to show how it looks after the dips.

[danilius 118]

Have you tried dipping in a thin ABS/acetone slurry? The acetone will coat the surface and smooth it as well as fill small holes. I have tried it before with mixed success, but didn't really have the time to fine-tune it.

[cloakfiend 995]

no i haven't but i cant imagine it being as smooth due to the blobby nature of abs in acetone. at the moment i have perfected a technique which will almost always give almost perfect results, so i see no need to look for any other techniques or solutions for problems that just don't exist for me. the only downside as i have mentioned before is acetone on perfectly flat surfaces thin ones aren't so much of a problem unless they are flat or near flat.. need putty for that.

in my opinion the more impurities in the acetone the worse the outcome. ive been using the same for a while, but on my recent job noticed difference in whiteness from how deep the model is dipped. and the deeper the better. the time in the acetone appeared to be unchanged. the whiteness is something to do with the reaction or exposure to air either during or directly afterwards. ill try figure it out as sometimes the models dont go white at all but smooth as normal, even using the same filament?

Edited October 31, 2015 by Guest

[cloakfiend 995]

it was my cousins wedding today and unfortunately due to the printer being tied up i couldn't reprint this failed small test print so i just sprayed it gold and gave it to him and his wife who still loved it along with a non sprayed larger test. acetoned as usual. printed VERY thin, and barely any post work.

Edited October 31, 2015 by Guest

[cloakfiend 995]

With the latest colorfabb filament I've been using, i'm finding using a brush on small detailed objects very effective as a dunk would simply destroy them.

[KevinMakes 22]

Thanks again for your continued updates.

[cloakfiend 995]

No problem glad to help.

[cloakfiend 995]

just tried this brushon methd for a large print and whilst some part will look ok the steeper parts where the acetone simple rolls off do not get enough soaking, so dont even waste you time unless your print is perfect, in which case it should work. pics coming...

first pic after acetone brush on twice with half an hour between applications. Maybe if i did it more it might do more, but then again i may as well just dip it as its more consistent and takes less time. and only need to be done once.

and the back untreated

spray painted after acetone....

still wet so it will probably look worse when its dry. but i would dip the next one as i don't like this method at all on large stuff as the acetone pools in unwanted areas for too long..

dry. not that great .....the brush on method sucks.

Edited November 3, 2015 by Guest

[cloakfiend 995]

OK a new face, and i gave the main elevating screw a bit of a wipe down and new lube as well as I was worried maybe dirt was in the thread there causing layers not to be as good as they should and this print looks real nice, i will dunk this one rather than brush it on and see how it goes. its printed with 20% infill this time. just to see if it helps and the eyes region looks perfect this time. I think it has trouble with no support sometimes. Oh well, still experimenting....

acetoning when i get home.......

[KevinMakes 22]

looks great, what is your poly deviation and angle deviation for that model?

[cloakfiend 995]

My maya has simply given up on me and my stupid high polycounts, so i decimated it from 1.4 million polys to around 600,000 and angle, well im not sure what you mean but i sunk it down in cura to avoid a lot of weirdness from the initial scan that i couldnt clean up and zbrush doesn't like working with polys with no thickness, or i just dont know how to use it more like, lol. all my faces are tests for me to improve my sculpting speed and learning how to draw newer features. Im just beginning to do hair now finally.

here is the angle it printed at on the printer if thats what you mean....?

30 degrees-ish? or less.

[KevinMakes 22]

[KevinMakes 22]

I'm talking about the angle and deviation tolerances, I have found that that really increases the quality of the prints with organic surfaces. Adds a lot more detail. (not so much cleanup)