Just as an experiment, I tried brushing a WSF model a couple of times with plastic solvent fluid, the kind used for fixing plastic styrene sheet. Solvent fluid melts a tiny surface layer of the styrene, fusing parts to each other. I had wondered if the solvent fluid would have any effect on the rough surface of a WSF model. After about four or five brushings, it appeared to have no effect at all. That's a pity. Obviously a different plastic compound to the styrene used in plastic modelling sheets. I wonder is there anything else that might be brushed on, that might take the rough edge off the WSF? An alternative to the lengthy and over aggressive Shapeways polishing procedure would be nice.
From the info here, it doesn't look like there's any readily available solvent for WSF (nylon 12). I wonder if a 'flame polish' would work? Just where did I put that WSF Bowie :twisted:
Apparently it is possible to chemically smooth Nylon but the solvent is really toxic because the bonds in Nylon also occur in proteins (peptide bonds). Flame polishing doesn't work either. It just goes black.
I've heard from a modeller that CA (Cyanoacrilaten) do the job but I won't try it: much too dangerous stuff, specialy if used in such quantities. Daniel
CA has been done already, you can see comments and examples in this forum. But it doesn't melt, it just seals the surface and fills the smalls holes, just like using matte varnish. Or any other type of filler liquid/paste, for that matter. Anyway, that's better done by hand and in small steps, otherwise you get nasty blobs while with control you can avoid sanding or reduce it to bare minimum. Varnishing the dice tower box took 2 coats, each some minutes of manual work to apply with a brush over a plate as shallow bath (with special care to avoid the inner shell sticking to the outer). The result is a silky surface, not 100% smooth but nice, and no sanding needed.