Transcript:
Models that have been 3d printed a built up with layers, so have tiny little steps visible on close inspection. Sometimes a smooth look is desired, however, so in this video, we’ll be experimenting with giving parts an acetone vapor bath to make them look like professional injection. Mold prints, my goodness, it looks good. Acetone is an organic compound that can be used as a powerful solvent and is used in products Like nail polish remover and paint. It is very flammable azeris vapors. So it’s important to keep us away from any naked flames, while very small amounts of acetone are present in your body and in some fruits and vegetables, exposure to large amounts obviously isn’t recommended, so it’s important to use gloves and to be in a well-ventilated environment during its use. So how can acetone be used to smooth off 3d prints? Well, as I mentioned previously? Acetone can be used as a solvent and can actually dissolve ABS, which is one of the common materials used in 3d printing as it’s pretty intense of this. It’s a bad idea to paint it onto the parts directly, so the vapors need to be used instead when exposed to these vapors. ABS begins to dissolve at a slower and more controllable rate. Now keep in mind that not all filaments are created, equal cheap. ABS filament may have other plastics mixed in which will cause it to dissolve unevenly and give pretty rubbish results. Good quality! ABS is a must if you plan on finishing it with acetone. So it’s worth spending the extra here in the UK. I got mine from e3 D Online, a link to which you can find in the description now printing with ABS filament is slightly trickier than printing with PLA and having the first layer stick strongly to the bed is very important. Some people use glue sticks or hair spray for this. But another method is to get some scrap. ABS remains and dissolve them into a bit of acetone to make a slurry. After setting the hotbed to 60 Celsius, This ABS slurry can be poured onto it as the acetone has a boiling point of 56 Celsius. It should start to boil off as the hotbed heats up. And you’ll be left with a messy patch of sticky. ABS, that adheres to the surface extremely well and can be printed onto really easily. So once you have your model, It’s time to treat it with some acetone vapor and the safest method is to take advantage of evaporation at room future. So the first thing we’ll need is a little tray and a short platform to place the model onto with that done. We can now fold a piece of paper towel into a loop and use a piece of cardboard to wedge it to the bottom of a tall glass. Now we need some acetone. This can be bought quite cheaply from most chemists, but if you can’t find any locally. I’ve placed a link to some in the description. Simply pour a small amount into the glass and swirl it around so that it completely drenches the paper towel and then place it over the model as acetone evaporates at room temperature vapours will begin settling at the bottom of the glass so to keep them from seeping out we can pour a small amount of water into the bottom of the tray. At first, some bubbles will begin to escape, so let a little bit of the water inside so that the water gets displaced rather than the vapors. As time passes, the model will begin to go shiny and smooth over as the outer surface is gently dissolved by the acetone. Once it looks like is halfway there. Remove the glass and let it dry. This early cut off is because a lot of the smoothing actually occurs during the drying process. So it’s important to remove it a little early. So you don’t overdo it. This one was overdone. In an attempt to hide the admittedly poor quality of the original print, which had been printed with no cooling. The smoothing was mildly successful at this, but it also erased much of the detail. This exemplifies how important it is to have a decent 3d print to begin with like this one, which is much better. Another thing you might want to consider, is adding a fan to keep the air circulating inside so that the vapors don’t settle at the bottom of the glass and smooth the base of the model more than the top, though you’ll have to make sure that it isn’t made out of ABS plastic. For obvious reasons. This second attempt came out perfectly and retains all of the detail with the majority of lines and now smoothed over. It looks so much better than it did before and really shows how much potential this method has at boosting the quality of 3d prints almost up to the level of in mold parts very impressive indeed. So what’s the worst-case scenario with this method well? Acetone vapor has been known to ignite with static discharge sparks, so I tested it by putting a large spark generator inside the glass to no effect even upright, I couldn’t get it to ignite and had to resort to dropping a lit match directly inside. So with a little care, you should be just fine, but if you attempt anything shown in this video, you do so at your own risk, although I personally couldn’t get it to ignite with sparks, play things safer, and if you use a fan, make sure that it uses a brushless motor rather than a brushed one, which might generate sparks now. I don’t know about you guys, but I’m really quite impressed. At how close you can get to injection mold quality prints with just a very cheap 3d printer and some acetone really not bad at all. Now before I sign off. You might remember that in my last video, I sent a sample of my saliva off to be analyzed by ancestry, COMS, DNA service and the results are in so just a quick reminder that if you want to discover more about your own family history, you can get a 10 percent discount off the service by visiting Ancestrycom, slash perks or by following the link in the description, right. I’ve not actually had to look at my results yet. So this is a first time for me, so we’re quite exciting. I should be half polish as both of my mom’s Parents Were from Poland. So well. See what the results say? Well, okay, so I’m very European, so I’ve got a huge amount of European East, which kind of makes sense with my grandparents being Polish and then half is British, of course, and only 7% Irish. Honestly, I thought my granddad was Irish, probably not. Oh, 1% from India so that must be quite far back, but India south. I’ve got a little bit of Indian in me somewhere. Interesting so again, if you want to start your own. DNA discoverie’s ancestry is offering You guys my viewers, a 10% discount. If you go to Ancestrycom, slash perks or by following the link in the description other than that I met. And now you know a bit more about me. Hope we see you next time. [MUSIC].