Siraya Tech has a new castable resin. Let’s take a look.
Hey guys,
I’m just getting over a nasty cold so bear with me if I sound even stranger than normal.
I’ve never hidden my liking of Siraya Tech Cast, castable resin.
For the price, it’s excellent, and for me it casts great. But it does have its drawbacks.
First is the fact that prints take on oxygen during the curing process,
which means to get a good quality castings, you need to cure the prints floating in vegetable
glycerine or similar. But in truth, as a drawback, this has never really bothered me.
What does bother me is the colour. The deep purple initially looks attractive,
but when you’re scrutinising the print for flaws, it’s very hard to see them.
I hate the colour so much, a while ago now I contacted Siraya Tech and said,
“hey, can we change the colour?”
And amazingly, Siraya Tech said, “Sure, we’ll have a go.”
So secretly, in the background, Siraya Tech have been developing their new product,
and I’m pleased to say I was able to offer a little input here and there.
In fact, you may recall seeing this video where I mentioned that I was using a new,
unseen resin – which in truth was actually a Siraya Tech prototype.
I really liked it. The grey wasn’t perfect in colour,
though it was way better than purple, but more importantly it printed and cast very nicely.
So I thought, we’re on to a winner here. Then, out of the blue, no pun intended,
Siraya Tech sent me a completely different resin, saying, “Here’s our finished product.”
They’ve called it True Blue, and as said it’s completely different to anything I’ve already
provided feedback on, which frankly peed me off a bit as it made me wonder why I’d wasted
my time and effort with other products – but that’s testing for you I suppose.
So, what follows is not actually a review as I haven’t had enough time with the product
yet to form any firm opinions, but it’s hopefully a good introduction
to something that until now I haven’t seen. As the name suggests, it’s blue in colour,
but to really show the benefit of this, I needed to print something.
Unfortunately, I received no information on this specific resin,
so that meant guessing at settings, and as I’m still in love with the Anycubic Photon
D2 DLP printer, that was my printer of choice. I’m not the most patient guy at the best of times,
and as I’m a huge wimp when I’m ill, I’m even more impatient then. But I set off with good intentions
to dial in the resin nicely, beginning with the figures I already had for the Purple Cast.
But after three hours and four exposure test prints, I hadn’t got it right.
Even though I’d dropped the layer times by nearly 2 seconds,
the test still seemed a little over-exposed – especially as these holes were blocked.
However, Purple Cast has always been pretty forgiving on settings for me,
so I grumpily decided to abandon proper practice and just print something.
One good thing about being ill is that I found myself feeling creative - because I couldn’t do
anything else, I suppose - and I revisited a ring design I’d started about 12 months ago.
If you’re interested in the Wild West or more particularly in Poker, you might recognise these
cards. Tales tell us that this is the hand held by Wild Bill Hickok – aces and eights – when he was
shot in the back by Jack McHall. Whether it’s true or not, and whether the cards were actually black
or red suits we’ll never really know, but it makes for a great story and has earned these particular
cards the infamous name of the “Dead Man’s Hand.” The problem was I hated this design and abandoned
it for that reason, but in my flued-up state, I revisited it and was pleased with the outcome.
As I said, I had no data on the resin, but I was aware of a couple of things,
and one was that Siraya Tech wanted this resin to have wax content, for cleaner burnout.
Experience has taught me that wax resins usually need meaty supports, so I didn’t mess around and
went with a few 1mm tips for the sake of overkill. Initially I thought my over-impatient approach had
paid off, but you can see there’s a crack that splits in two as I try to remove it. Again,
this is something I’ve come across with wax resins – they can be weak.
But the detail was looking good, and the colour really worked for me.
It’s certainly easy to see this blatant flaw. So, I added a few more beefy supports in the
mid-section to provide strength, and then printed with success.
Clipping felt weird. The supports didn’t snap but more crunch beneath the clippers.
The feeling of softness put me off the idea of sanding the nubs away – not
that I needed to, as you’ll see in a moment. The other thing I knew about this resin was
that Siraya Tech wanted a more conventional cure, so after a minute’s wash in IPA,
I just used an ordinary UV curing set-up – with no glycerine or water washes.
But again, experience with wax-content castable resins has taught me that a thorough UV cure is
needed, so this one had 30 minutes. That may be over the top, but I was guessing.
The D2 had certainly done a great printing job and the resin really shows this.
Unfortunately, it’s not all roses though. Even though I clipped everything carefully,
it seems every support has caused damage. It’s nice that the colour makes this obvious,
but it unfortunately meant I needed to spend time filling in voids with castable wax.
This is a washer that I need for another project, but here you can see wax sprues
easily stick to these prints. Before moving on to the casting,
as I was happy with how this ring had printed, I went back and, using the exact same settings
which I already felt were over-exposed, printed the AmeraLabs Town Test print.
Frankly I was somewhat underwhelmed. The ring printed well but the same settings didn’t please
me with the exposure test or this Town print. So, I really don’t think my settings are correct
here and I have a feeling dialling this resin in won’t be as easy as it is with the Purple Cast.
I’m pleased with that.
The wax content could well be helping here as for me this is a good casting. And if
you like this Dead Man’s Hand design, the STL is available for a couple of pounds on my Etsy store.
So, as I said at the beginning guys, this is not a review. But as I also said, it’s my first
time with this particular resin and Siraya Tech has never had feedback from me on this product.
So, here’s my initial impressions.
I love the colour. It really shows details and potential flaws.
Printing is not ideal. It prints well, don’t get me wrong, but set-up may be troublesome
and plenty of supports are likely to be needed, including thick supports.
Once printed it’s weak, probably because of the wax content, so I think time may be
required to repair likely imperfections with wax. It cleans and cures as easily as most resins do.
And it certainly seems to cast well. Those wax-purists out there will be delighted
and anyone with any level of casting experience should find True Blue burns out nicely for them.
If you fancy trying Siraya Tech Blue, it was available for sale on Amazon in the US,
but it’s already sold out – though I’ll provide a link in the description anyway.
Time will tell if this resin grows on me. Where it has strengths, they’re damned good ones.
But right now, I’m a little disappointed. It seems Siraya Tech has traded one set of
inconveniences for another, rather than hash them all out with a new superior product,
which for me seems pointless. But more products mean more sales I guess,
so you can’t blame them for that, and True Blue is certainly a capable castable resin,
even though so far it hasn’t wowed me. But who knows, maybe next time it will.
So that’s it for this video guys. Take care and thanks for watching.