Hey! I`m still a newbie when it comes to 3D printing and I have a few questions: I always order my 3D prints in "white strong & flexible polished" material. The surface already is smooth, but I want it even more smoother. Because I want to use this print as prototype to cast it in resin. Any suggestions how I can make it smoother? Thank you
Sandpaper(probably 400-2000 depending on just how smooth you want/need) and old fashioned elbow grease! ;p
If you're using it to make a mold, apply a clear coat. I've used spray on sanding lacquer on Nylon. Takes a couple coats as it's very porous.
Ditto^^ I spray mine with a BN or TiO finish then dry and sand that. The Boron Nitride and Titanium Oxide finishes are also heat resistant as some methods of molding and materials generate LOTS of heat in the reactions they make. (Acrylics, Expanding foams etc.) Erck
Warning it's expensive. Similar results may be available with a very fine spray on primer (automotive quality). If you Google it - LOL https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion =1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=boron+nitride+spray+coating& ;spell=1 I Buy mine from Amazon or CaswellPlating.com http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=bl_sr_hi?ie=UTF8&field-brand textbin=Hi-Temp+Mold+Release&node=228013
Many complex shapes cannot be hand sanded. Even small gaps are hard to finish cleanly with moto tool... Anyways sanding should be done after priming.
Has anyone ever tried polishing in an old school rock tumbler with fine grit? I got the girlfriend a tumbler for the holidays and she is now tumbling every rock in sight. WSF might work in that thing although it would probably become discolored and dirty. But it should do something with shortened polishing times. I think some of my old scrap parts will need to go into that thing soon as an experiment!
I have only made one design so far, and am waiting to receive it before I design more... But the issue of smoothness already made me scratch my head. When I draw a design in photoshop, make it 3D and then use Tinkercad, the surfaces look all wonky to me. There are odd waves and cracks in the Tinkercad version that I don't see in the Photoshop 3D version at all. A line that is a nice, smooth curve, suddenly had "blobs" in it. So of course I am afraid the finished print will have those too. Is this a problem or does the Shapeways process see the lines as straight, or copy faithfully these odd rough surfaces that seem to appear on Tinkercad on their own? Leena
Most drawing programs today have an option for "Smooth Shading" so that your final presentation looks smoother. When you start working in the 3d print world, you need to turn that option OFF. I'm not sure what you mean by "blobs"... can you share a couple of screen shots?
Tinkercad has a minimal set of settings to make it easier to use. I believe what might be happening is that stl files uploaded to Tinkercad are processed through an algorithm to reduce memory requirements. Here is an example of an ornament I uploaded generated by the Shapeways ornament generator as it looks after generation (top) and after it is uploaded to Tinkercad and then exported back to Shapeways (bottom). It sure looks like Tinkercad removed some vertices but is it bad? When this part was printed in red strong flexible it looks just fine but it could be that polishing helped. I don;t think you would see much degradation even in a plain white strong flexible print, at least not for a spherical shape. Maybe something with sharp corners or bumps would be affected more. ------------------------------------------------------------ ----------------- ETA. You'll notice that the wall thicknesses are slightly different for those two ornaments so I think I may have scaled up a small ornament file in Tinkercad and the above images are not showing differences for the exact same source file. The mesh reduction effects, however, are what can be expected and I've seen them with other files as well. It might be best to make your own comparisons using your own file.
Yes, a bit like that, only the unevenness of surface looks much worse. Thank you for the advice of taking the Smooth Shading off. I never realized there even is such a feature... Will try that and see if it does the trick. Leena
I think you'll have to experiment to see what gives you good results. I don't recommend tumbling at the same time as rocks as the hardness is so different from the rocks. Rock tumblers recommend tumbling rocks of similar hardness so you don't have to fish some out before others. And the rocks hitting each other will also cause erosion. Adafruit did a video for the 3D print Thursdays vidcast where they tumbled some bronzefill filament. Details will get rounded over, things sticking out can get broken off. Check out a supplier for rock tumbling media. There is ceramic media and other materials.
It is possible through Sanding Process. The process of sanding is exactly as it sounds. FDM plastic parts can be sanded by hand or with belt sanders, like wood or automotive parts. Sanding is an inexpensive, effective, and proven method to reach a smooth finish. It is consistently the most widely used finishing technique for 3D-printed parts.