How do I deal with patchy FUD surfaces + an intro to painting the material?

I'm mostly just a sculptor so far as I've never been into any sort of painting in my adult life. For the most part, I've been printing the occasional pieces for gifts (great for someone who's bad at finding those) or for my own reference and, because it's by far the most detailed affordable material available, I've gone with Frosted Ultra Detail plastic now several times. I would actually like to get started doing some basic painting just to give the models an opaque surface to see the detail better but I'm held up by the inconsistent surfaces FUD produces and my own inexperience with painting. Hopefully if I get around some of these I can maybe put a few things up on a shop and see how that works out.

My first problem is that every single FUD print I've gotten along the way has, for whatever reason, had a patchy surface that makes it nigh on impossible for the eye to read light properly, resulting in a messy surface that's less appealing than a basic strong flexible plastic. They start out with splotchy patches of frosted surface and alternate splotches of yellowish transparent surfaces. I didn't mind so much on my first few models because I could still manage to appreciate the details but over time those frosted areas become an opaque white that just doesn't look at all like what I had hoped for. On my most recent model, I actually have to strain to see even the most basic details on my sculpture's face, which I spent several hours staring at while I was making it. I can't even see where its mouth is from most angles which is not at all what I had hoped for from the most detailed material I could order.

So for that problem, I'm hoping someone can give me some insight into how to fix it and get a consistent surface. I don't mind the transparency and the examples used on the website really look great but I don't like that the surfaces I get are so messy and confusing to look at. They're practically unusable without a layer of paint and I was kind of disappointed when I had to give the Strong Flexible model as a gift instead of the FUD version which somehow looked worse despite being several times more expensive. I would have ordered a much larger Strong Flexible version had I expected that.

I emailed Shapeways about it and they recommended maybe baking it in the oven at 60 degrees to soften the wax but that sounded kind of risky thing to go and try since I don't have a ton of examples sitting around nor do I know how to remove softened wax in the first place.






Looking at a particularly thin model I ordered, a portrait in relief as a sort of medallion, it actually looks like there are air bubbles or something through the material itself. That's a completely different issue to the surface splotches I'm seeing but equally annoying since I can't see the face at all now.



My second obstacle is that I don't have supplies of paint sitting around and I don't have other uses for them if I happen to buy something that doesn't work. Being as inexperienced as I am, it seems rather expensive and fruitless to just buy random paints in the hopes that they'll work, especially since I would hardly know if it was working correctly in the first place (did I mention I don't yet know what I'm doing?). I figured it would be nice to ask here. I know very little about preparing surfaces, priming them, and choosing the right paints for preserving details.

So my second request is for a good place to start painting FUD (and Strong Flexible) plastic that will get me past these goofy surface issues I'm having. I just want to cover the surfaces in a single shade for now so that I have references for what FUD can hold in the future and so I can stick some models on the shelf.


As a side note, I had recommended to Shapeways that they provide instructions for fixing this sort of thing (which seems to happen every single time in my experience) both on the material page and along with the box for anyone who orders the material without realizing that it happens (like me). Not mentioning it anywhere makes me feel kind of lost. I also recommended they offer small packets of basic, reliable paints for people like me who just want to coat the surface or learn the basic process of painting these materials. Might be a helpful project for anyone out there who's interested in that sort of thing (like the material test projects you can order but with sample paints as well).

There are some threads regarding finishing FUD & SWF materials, with various solvents, UV curing strategies, detergent washes, best types of paint , primer etc. I'm a bit surprised how the horse came out, was not expecting to see that much variation, but I also noticed that your models are not shelled and have seen issue with very thick area in other printed products. BTW - I've got a 2 part design in excess of $700 on the way, so I'm a little more concerned about what I might get now having seen your models. The other thing is I've always thought of FUD & FED as master model types of output, so as long as the finish is good I won't be disappointed. Of course some small parts look great, so it is probably a matter of scale and thickness. Best of luck, thanks for the pictures, and keep us informed as to what you may discover.. I'll do the same. -S

The horse isn't shelled because I didn't really want a hole anywhere on it. The character with its arms crossed is hollowed out, though probably not as thin as I could have gotten it. The worst effect actually is on that portrait which is probably the thinnest piece I have whereas the horse, which is solid, has nothing internal going on. That bright white on the horse started out much less distinct as on the character by the way. I know the other sculpture I gave away to a sibling turned half white like that too which bothered me.

I'll try to look up those processes. I don't even know what UV curing really is and I don't recall anything about any of those cleaning processes being described on the material's page which seems rather disingenuous. I'd be happy to learn the right way to finish these models but I really just wanted a consistent surface to start from. I understood that they wouldn't be the most beautiful material in the world, seeing as how they don't cast shadows as readily as an opaque material, but I also had hoped they would be consistent enough for me to have an understanding of what the material is supposed to be.

As far as I can tell, there's nothing significant wrong with the surfaces themselves (the tool marks seem more distinct but I can't be sure without seeing the whole surface the same way). If I painted them, I would expect them to be in much greater detail than basic plastic prints as they're supposed to be. I just want to know what's going on with the surface first.

This is a render of the actual model, by the way. I was tempted to get it in colored sandstone (still am) but didn't have time to get it in before the holidays.

I suspect those are support areas, like the chest,.. I see a pattern, like a shield that is not in the model. Beautiful model BTW. I've had parts from other vendors with part of the model seemed to be a mix of materials, like the streams got crossed. Still don't use Onjet printer even though it has been years.

I wonder if there are water soluble finishes you could use to see the surface better, something that literally comes full off in warm soapy water - would be nice the evaluate the surfaces without the light scattering.

I've got parts in today, 3 hour photo sess, time for post processing. -S

I've seen mention of wax supports but I don't have a clue what to do about them nor have I actually seen any pictures (I haven't looked to hard yet). I tried washing one wish dish soap since that was suggested on whatever thread I found it on but I haven't tried baking it in the oven yet. I feel like there should be some obvious solution if this happens to every single FUD print.

I've also seen mention of oils leftover that needed to be washed (that was probably what I was reading about when I tried to fix it). I don't really even know whether the frosted or transparent look is the real material right now.

With the creature guy, I did notice there was some symmetry to it but I couldn't really see it too well until it started to whiten a little bit more (which it has now, though not much). Looking at the FUD models I have, it looks like the white frosted/opaque sections are all contained on one side of the model as if that were the half it rested on. I assume that is pretty much how it worked out, with my horse printing sideways rather than on its feet (it leans to much to stand on its own). I think there's also bits in areas that might have needed temporary webbing or that wouldn't have cleaned off with a basic cleaning (nooks and crannies). The symmetrical patch on his chest throws me off because it splits in half and becomes kind of arbitrary around his face.

Any idea how to get it off? I'd love to see what you've gotten printed. I haven't found nearly enough references because all most stores have are beauty shots and renders.

Although I haven't encountered the variety in finished texture you're getting, I have had some variation in the surface of my FUD/FXD prints. The first thing I do is soak the parts in Simple Green for a few minutes. I place the part in a ziplock bag and fill with the Simple Green. Next I scrub the parts with a toothbrush. After washing the parts with soap and water and drying with compressed air, I use Future acrylic floor polish to seal the parts. Future is quite thin and clear and brushes on nicely. I use a large watercolor brush to apply it. The finish of the parts at this point is usually a clear, glossy sheen. Once the parts are coated with Future you can paint them with pretty much whatever paints you want: acrylic, enamel, oil, whatever.

I tried letting them soak in a jar of Simple Green for a few minutes, then for a day before scrubbing them with a toothbrush. It didn't really do anything that I can tell, though I might have buffed some material off the horse's back due to trying rather hard.

I'm honestly still even learning the vocabulary of painting, printing, casting, and cleaning. I need a no-experimentation method to start with, something that just works with acceptable results, then I'll delve more into all this tweaking and messing around everyone does here on the forums if I find myself heading that way. On a side note, I'd eventually like to try messing with cheaper molds so that I can make larger prints of my models and duplicate them more affordably and with better materials. That's yet another introduction I'm on the lookout for if anyone knows where to look. Large prints of strong flexible rely on my ability to paint them nicely and I'd much rather have a clean hard surface cast since painting's not my thing (yet).

In general, from what I understand for these FUD prints (correct me where possible), you usually start by cleaning the model to remove the oil and wax residues left behind during production (dishwashing detergent, acetone, isopropyl alcohol, paint thinner, Bestine, baking it in an oven, scrubbing, etc.), then optionally finish curing the material (I assume this is like cooking your meat all the way through but with UV light and resin), before sealing the material with a varnish/lacquer coat to keep anything left over from any of the previous processes from interacting with the outer layer of paints as well as to protect the model from weathering. The sealing process sounds like it then doubles, in this case, as a priming stage which can be followed by painting and, finally, a surface gloss/matte coat using the same sealant as before. I think there are also numerous other surface treatments like buffing and detailing passes that would fit in before the sealing as well.

I've really only looked through a handful of the FUD threads on the forums but there's a ton of different answers and approaches to the cleaning, sealing, and painting stages. Sometimes these methods sound incredibly contrived and require a studio full of supplies while other times they're as simple as raiding your broom closet. I also realize that most of the actual knowledge for these things is probably out in model figurine/train/plane/etc. forums which have been doing this stuff for ages (I haven't started searching outside these forums yet though). I also see people swearing by their particular solutions but more often than not I suspect their preferences are out of familiarity with a reliable product than because they've thoroughly tested and compared everything on the market. I won't have an eye for which varnishes hold the longest or shine the clearest or stick the best for awhile yet so basics is what I'll hopefully aim for.




I'm going to list out a few of the options I've found (so far) to clarify what I know and whether they work or not. At the moment, the ones with the least amount of fuss and most useful/affordable solutions (model specific brands likely being the most expensive?) seem to be Bestine for the cleaning and Future Floor Polish for the coating and sealing. A lot of the rest seems to be for fancier, more focused results which I wouldn't even recognize. I also prefer them because I have good reason to believe they'll work on FUD in particular (rather than guessing).

Cleaning:
*Dishwashing Detergents (Simple Green) - This is mentioned as part of pretty much every cleaning method I found. I guess they work because they break down paints and other non-resistant layers from surfaces over a period of hours but are much much more gentle than the paint thinners and whatnot.
*Paint Thinners (Acetone specifically) - Apparently a more heavy-handed approach to stripping layers of paint and unwanted materials from a model before working with it. This is then followed with the standard soap soak above. Paint thinners are solvents that break down various different types of paints. It sounds like different paint thinners are ideal for different substances that need to be removed as they each have different strengths or are more or less volatile around certain materials. Acetone was the only one I saw mentioned here though.
*Bestine - This (another paint thinner I assume) was mentioned more than once as a standard solution for cleaning. Soak for a day, then let the model dry for a week I guess. I've also read that this and other solvents will leak into porous materials like the Strong Flexible plastics and seep out continuously after that.
*Poly S Plastic Prep - I don't know whether this is both cleaning and sealing but it's another variation and it has its own instructions on the store page. It's apparently discontinued but I've got the tab open so I must of read it somewhere around here and written it down.
*Isopropyl Alcohol (91-99%?) - Not entirely sure on the application of these but I definitely saw them mentioned a few times as cleaners.
*Ultrasonic Cleaner - I assume this uses vibrations to shake loose anything soft. It sounds like a magic solution for those who have access to one.
*Baking it in an Oven - This is what Shapeways recommended to me. I have no idea if it works and almost no instructions either. I was told to bake it at 60 degrees (celsius I assume) but to avoid 70 degrees because that's when the model will become brittle. I don't know how long to bake it or how to remove the heat softened wax safely. I don't know how to hold the model without breaking it or burning myself either. If anyone's tried this, I'd be grateful to know how it went. If I can't get my models cleaned nicely, I might just nuke one of them as a test, though some control to the experiment would be helpful I suppose.

Coating/Sealing:
*Pledge Floor Care Multi-Surface Finish - This is the current name of the future polish you mentioned. It's supposed to have the same ingredients and whatnot but it looks like there's a "3X Cleaning Power" and "2X More Shine" version so I guess it might be a bit of a mix. With what little I know, it sounds like a lot of the people who think it doesn't work as well are reacting more to a change of habit than anything else. Kind of a "things used to be easier" mentality. I haven't looked enough to find any other perspectives but this seems really accessible since it pops up at Walmart and Home Depot when you search it online.
*IPP Super Clear Gloss - A Korean product that obviously works for the coating process. It was referenced for use on sandstone and I don't know if it said anything about sealing as well. I would imagine hobby shops and specifically targeted products like this would be more expensive (I bought a tiny bottle of turpentine from an art store. Never again), though they'd certainly be more reliable placebos. This shop has gloss and matte variations as well.


Is it important or recommended to do another coat of varnish over the paint to both lock the paint and give the surface a gloss/matte as well? It sounds like some people add several layers for other materials.


Anyway, I'll keep looking. It seems like I should have had some of these concepts made available by Shapeways since they are not just a hub for modelers and print makers but also for customers passing by who have no idea that FUD requires all this extra work. Curiosity seekers ought not to have such a hard time with these things.

I agree with much of what you have said. To date, I don't feel that there is a definitive process for preparing FUD and FXD for finishing. I have done some experimentation and I'll share MY thoughts.
Cleaning really depends on the size and amount of delicate detail. I have tried a variety of chemicals and found that acetone will soften the print in as little as 15 minutes, the smaller parts being affected first. Likewise iso alcohol, just double the time frame. My prints that started to get soft did harden again, but it took several days and some of the small parts warped. I also noticed an increase in brittleness of the parts affected.
I have yet to try simple green or Goo Gone but the Goo Gone might be my next trial. For me, Bestine (rubber cement thinner) has worked the best after a 24 hr soak. Not cheap and it is a nasty chemical not to be used indoors. After drying for a week, I find mechanical abrasion best to remove any "fluff". This includes sanding with 400 grit wet/dry or better, rubbing with a small wooden toothpick and using an air eraser on larger details (use only baking soda and avoid very delicate details and the air pressures involved will remove them.) I found applying heat will warp parts and I have only done this to straighten parts that need it. I tried UV treatments and didn't see any difference.
Once prepped, I have found Mr. Hobby Resin Primer to bond well and cover many of the small printing irregularities. Comes in a spray can, a few light coats seem to suffice. It is sandable to a feather edge which makes it good for flat surfaces that must be smooth. It has a heavier pigment than fine scale model paints so it can mask some very fine details. On those parts, Pollyscale lt gray primer seems to work well though it does not do well when sanded. I sand the Mr. Hobby Resin Primer as needed and re-spray if I take too much off.
Once primed, I paint as I normally would with Pollyscale (though I'm running low and there's not much hope of more coming to market) and gloss coat prior to decals. After decals, I gloss, semi-gloss or flat coat according to taste. I use PollyScale clears to keep things consistent.

Well I'll add those post-cleaning options to my list of possible approaches. I think those sorts of things might be better suited to smoother surfaced models like that train than to a horse or sculpture though. A certain amount of material texture is expected and, to an extend, desired in any sculpture . This is especially true in this case since I'm unable to prepare prints for customers without inserting myself into the middle of the transaction. I could make my model look nice but not theirs.

I think I'm going to start with the broom closet approach and pick up some Future Polish and Bestine for my first try.



Is there any way to include printed instructions with our prints sold through Shapeways stores? I think that would help eliminate confusion and these sorts of things do have an appeal as common hobby activities. I also find myself much more comfortable with the idea of buying from these stores if the storekeeper has a chance to reach out beyond just the store page itself.

A second question in that regard is whether there's any way to link models so that they can be ordered in packs? My last project includes several interlocking pieces of metal, each printed in different materials and held together with interlocks, magnets, and glue. I like that they can be printed in several pieces of a buyer-specified material but I don't like that they have to track down the parts individually.

I should probably post that as a separate question, maybe email shapeways about it.

I think I'm going to need to order some test pieces with different thicknesses, textures, and shapes so that I can give a few of these things a try at some point too.

I tried acetone for 15 minutes on my horned creature and now it's drying. I scrubbed it a bit with a toothbrush to see if anything would come off but I can't see any change to the white patches. If this was wax, would it come off immediately? The model also doesn't seem at all soft, even the horns didn't budge when I pressed on them. The transparent surface might look ever so slightly better but I still don't have a control to compare to so I've got no progress I can understand yet.

I took some 500 sand paper to the horse to see how that works. I can sort of get the white off but there's no way I can sand down the outer layers of the mane, the muscles of the legs, or really in any crevice whatsoever. It mostly just buffs the convex surfaces and leaves even less consistent transitions.

Looking at the horned creature, the white patches (which are now as solid as those on the horse and dog I posted) appear in the same areas as a low quality ambient occlusion pass might. There's slight bulges on the base where the elbows overhang even. I'm not sure what to do about these patches other than to paint over them, yet I can see that the model is less detailed in those areas (the horse's neck is the worst). I don't particularly want to leave them in such a rough state so I'm going to email about the oven thing they mentioned.



On a side note, I have no idea how to apply that floor polish properly or in a thin layer. If it's something I can find online, I'll look for it. Otherwise I'd be grateful for any tips or instructions about how to do it right. I tried it on a piece of material I have and it just made a bit of a mess before eventually either cleaning off or drying invisibly. I assume it should be an actual shiny surface so I definitely didn't do it correctly.

I sprayed some Goo Gone (which I found under my bathroom sink) on my dog model after the other things didn't work and left it out overnight. When I found and cleaned it in the morning it did seem to be completely fixed but I later realized that the Goo Gone was still in the material and basically just unifying the refraction across the surface the way water often does. After a few hours, the white patches started to reappear and it went back to normal. Unfortunately, it also looks like the Goo Gone absorbs into the FUD strangely (I haven't waited long enough to know if it'll go away) and now the white patches look almost murky.

I also put the horse model into a jar to properly soak it in Goo Gone for 24 hours. I can't really tell what exactly to think about it. It briefly let me see the entire model as transparent for the first hour or so but, like the dog, it began to reappear a little while later. Again, though, there seems to be another difference in that the transparent portion of the model has become slightly more opaque. In a way, this solves half the problem in that I can now see the entire surface as a single material rather than half and half. On the other hand, it makes it much easier to see that the white patches are physically imperfect.

I took some more pictures and you can really see why I'm hesitant to paint with these patches still there. On the horned creature, the grooves along the surface are much more distinct and deeper than the printing process seems likely to produce. None of the rest of the model shows that sort of pattern so I don't know what to think about it. The acetone bath I gave that particular model has, I think, cleared up the transparent surface somewhat and the solid white is easier to make out than the semi-frosted look it started out with.







Any ideas? I still have some isopropyl alcohol (91%) to try but I don't really have any fresh prints to try it on, nor any real expectations for it to work. I've emailed about baking it but am leery of trying that without knowing what I'm doing.

Interesting experiments, thanks for sharing. Having just received some big FUD parts myself I some thoughts about the parts. While there is some residue on the parts that will show up while fine sanding, even after a detergent bath, continued sanding eliminates the effect. What we are all really dealing with IMO is that fact the support material causes a substantial variance in the quality of the surface. Nothing to do but hope for orientation rights and workarounds like splitting models. Wetting or soaking the parts will trick us like licking a rock on the beach, as those fluids and or solvents evaporate the white, more textured areas return, unless melted a bit by solvents but that is another conversation.

Trust me R&D labs are a buzz about this problem - solve this one and stock prices will soar. Also we are using production line 3D printing, so there could be some issues with maintenance and calibration that will we never know about,.. but the prices are pretty good if you got two weeks or so.

Thanks again for your photos and experience, it helps us all understand what can happen to our precious sculpts.

-S

My understanding is the "white" areas are where the support wax has caused microscopic roughness on the surface of the FUD - kinda like the surface of acid-etched glass. (Worth a squint through a magnifying lens!) Getting it wet will temporarily even out the diffraction, but the only real cure is to polish it smooth, or to soak the whole thing in liquid acrylic floor-wax to fill in all the pores for a more unified diffraction. (Johnson's Klear, also known of old as Future, is the stuff most plastic modellers use as an acrylic clear-coat. Works great on scratched clear airplane canopies...) For big stuff like this you might be able to dip them in a bucket of the acrylic wax and then stand them up to dry off, rather than messing with brushes. Bear in mind the whole structure of 3D-printed parts is porous because of the way layers of material are added - the exception is the metals where the base structure is either infused with copper (as with SW "steel") or is printed in wax for lost-wax casting in liquid metal (silver, etc).

If you want to see the surface detail you probably need to paint anyway, as clear FUD is hard to see properly with the Mk1 Eyeball. I tend to spray my FUD parts with grey auto-body primer (cheap & cheerful) before breaking out the paints. Even just the primer makes the true surface details pop out!

Glad the photos help. If I knew what I was doing--still trying to get that magical first success as far as I'm concerned--I'd probably order a handful of marbles made out of the material and do some more controlled tests on them. At the moment I've got just the horned creature clean enough to experiment with. I have no idea what's going on with the horse and the dog seems permanently murky now.

Barkingdigger, I've got Johnson's Floor Care Multi-Surface Finish because that's the name the internet says it goes by now (it's changed like four times). I don't actually know how to apply it yet so if there's a step by step that will keep me from making stupid mistakes I'd be happy to hear it. From what I know it's a clear coat that can be used to divide the thinners used to clean the material from the paints. I guess it's also used as an outer layer to add a clear glossy shell and it's surface, being more consistent and resistant, makes it easier to spread paints out across the model. I hadn't read anything about it actually filling pores to make a more unified surface quality but that sounds like another good reason for me to find the right way to use it.

I was planning on painting it, probably just a quick single shade to start with since I don't have paints or brushes sitting around all that much. Do I actually need a primer or does the floor finish also cover that? I was under the impression that it acted as its own primer by covering everything else up and being relatively adherent.

You can brush Future on (what I usually do), airbrush it on (it doesn't need to be thinned) or just dunk the model in a bath of Future and let it drip dry. When I've done the dunk method I use a paintbrush to soak up the droplets at the bottom of the model so they don't collect and dry there.

Found this elsewhere and it sounds like it explains my problem, though the sheer amount of support and the roughness it left behind on my models seems baffling. Maybe I should be asking how to avoid unnecessary supports during printing?

Okay, another set of images for another pass (since the surfaces of my models are now entirely off the books). I dipped both of these models into Pledge Floor Care Multi-Surface Finish and then did my best to brush the finish around to keep it thin and from pooling while avoiding floating hairs and covering it with my hands while it dried.

The horned creature, which was cleaned properly in acetone and allowed to dry for a few days, looks about how I'd expect. The transparent parts are glossier and possibly crisper in quality. The rougher support surfaces are, unfortunately, just as distinct from those areas as before. They might be less opaque with the change in surface diffusion. It may just whiten back up as the finish continues to dry.

The horse, on the other hand, is much more interesting. The Goo Gone bath I gave it changed the surface of the transparent areas to a milky opacity with a slight off-white tinge to it. The fox, which I hadn't been as controlled with (I sprayed it and left it out in lazy frustration) has started to coalesce from its earlier deeper looking milkiness to something closer to the surface like the horse had going on.

Now that it's been coated in Finish, the differences in surface quality have been amplified even more. The areas which were previously bright white, including the areas I sanded down, appear almost unaffected by the finish outside of being more transparent for the time being. The strange thing is that these are now the only areas that are transparent. The milky smooth surfaces are now nearly opaque, giving the impression of a slightly satiny cream.

I really like the quality of these areas because they essentially convert the unappealing but highly detailed transparent surface of FUD into something very close to the solid creamy base of an unpainted model horse. That's essentially what I was hoping to achieve except that I would have otherwise had to paint the surface to get that look. If I could get a model with a consistent surface quality, I could potentially create a workable finish in just a cleaning and coating pass.

The color reminds me of sheep's wool and a scrape of honeycomb.

I'll have to see what happens as these finish drying though. For all I know the effect could disappear in time.

Also note the divide between the two surface qualities. I could probably get rid of that quite easily with basic sand paper but the area on the horse's chest (right side of the front view) is much more varied and difficult to correctly remove without destroying the model's details.

That's exactly what's happening.
The issue is quite simple: you can't print in thin air. this means everything need to be supported. In many cases it is the material that supports itself, but any overhangs and undercuts need to be supported by wax. (imagine everything in the shade if the sun is directly on top of you)
You can see quite clearly how your items were printed by the 'frosting' on your models. Your figure was painted standing up, the horse on its back.

The only way to prevent this is making as much of the surfaces face up... as in cutting the design into pieces and having the detail face up. Or if you don't want to to that, you could have your figure printed laying on its back. This will protect the front with the detail from excessive 'frosting'.
Mind you, Shapeways decides on how they print something, so the design itself does not have the final say. Shapeways technicians usually get it right as they do their best to bring out the best possible quality. You can make it easier for them by adding sprues and/or connecting the different pieces.

As for removing/preventing the frosting. I've not seen a full proof method. I'm leaning toward cleaning them with acetone as soon as you get them, before using any other method.

"If this was wax, would it come off immediately?"

The plastic surface will be rougher anywhere it is in contact with the wax support material. Even when the wax is all gone, the surface will be rough.

There's no magic bullet to smooth the surface, get ready to sand the affected areas!

Steve Hunter