Siraya Tech Cast castable resin – let’s give it a review.
Hey guys, I’ve been using this resin for a few weeks
now but I haven’t actually Reviewed it, and as my reviews typically show how to use
a product, now seems a really good time to do just that.
I was very honoured to be asked by Siraya Tech to be the first person outside of their
company to test this resin, so a lot of what follows is purely guesswork and could very
well be improved upon. Frankly I had no idea what I was doing when
I had a bash at the AmeraLabs Town test print, but sometimes you just get lucky. Here’s
the settings I used on my Elegoo Mars 2 Pro and here’s the print. I was very impressed,
so I’ve never wavered from my initial guess. You may achieve better results with a little
tinkering and Siraya Tech are publishing their suggested printer settings, for which I’ll
include a link in the description. Siraya Tech’s resins typically prefer warm
temperatures, but personally I printed purely at room temperature, which in my home is in
the low 20’s. The one thing I will say for this resin is
the colour. It seems to have very strong pigmentation and sends your whole world purple until you’ve
cleaned everything very well. But with that said the prints have always
impressed me, sticking well to the build plate without issues, coping with all sizes of support
and retaining excellent levels of detail. Cleaning is surprisingly involved.
As is fairly typical, a good rinse in IPA is the way to start, after which a blast of
cool air gets rid of the excess. I’m using a cheap hair dryer here which has a cool setting.
At that point, the print needs to be rinsed for 30 seconds in hot water. How hot? I don’t
know. Its just straight from my kitchen faucet. After that, it’s rinsed for 30 seconds in
cold water. How cold? Again, straight from the tap works fine.
Another blast of cool air and maybe a little shake should dry the print enough to clip
away the supports. Now I always clip away the supports before
curing. It helps me spot any problems with the print before continuing.
I did find the resin a little brittle to clip. So don’t clip too close to the print.
Because I typically over-support my prints, I often find areas of uncured resin hiding
and, if that’s the case, it’s back to the cleaning process once again.
Siraya Tech from the off warned me that this resin needs to be cured BEFORE casting. Typically
a print would be placed under a UV lamp, but that’s not immediately recommended here.
As I understand it, curing in air does NOT allow the print to shed oxygen, which it needs
to do for ideal results, as there’s plenty of air around it to replace what’s driven
out. One possible solution might be to place the print in water, but unfortunately the
print can absorb some of this and that too can spoil the finish.
The solution, it seems, is vegetable glycine. It’s nice cheap stuff, relatively harmless
and readily available. It allows UV light to pass through it to cure the print, it allows
oxygen to be emitted and importantly, it doesn’t get absorbed into the print. Plus you only
need to buy one bottle as you can re-use it time and time again, and I like saving money
where I can. A little research suggested to me that glass
can inhibit the flow of UV light. However, that same research suggested that one of the
best materials to redirect UV light is Aluminium or Alloominum as our American cousins say.
So I took a foil pie dish, shaped this around the inside of a bowl and poured in the glycerine.
Now in theory the UV can bounce all around, maximising exposure.
The biggest problem here, though, is that prints within this resin float, which makes
things trickier. I also found bubbles naturally occur around
the print. To remedy both problems, I initially dipped
the print in the glycerine, pulled it free and allowed the majority to run off. This
adds a thin coating across the print which seems to discourage the bubbles. I then sank
the print with the aid of something heavy, like this bolt. In the future, I might cast
myself some small hooks. With this done the bowl can be placed in a
UV chamber. The Anycubic Wash and Cure Plus really helps
at this point as the turntable seems strong enough to carry the weight of the bowl and
the tilting light array should ensure good coverage. But a foil box and a UV lamp will
do the job as well. Siraya Tech suggested I cure for around 30
to 40 minutes but as I always overdo things, I cured for an hour, revisiting every 10 minutes
or so to reposition the print for even coverage. Once fully cooked, the print is again rinsed
in hot water for 30 seconds, then cold water for 30 seconds. I blasted with cool air to
dry and finally rinsed for 30 more second in clean IPA before blasting with cool air
to dry. The cured print tidies up nicely and responds
very well to sandpaper. I found fine grade paper easily removed any leftover support
nubs and also cleaned up any printer lines I could see.
The purple is okay to look at, but as I’ve said before, I like a nice grey. It’s easier
on the eye and allows me to see any imperfections that much easier.
I did find sanding made the print powdery in appearance, but a quick rinse in water
fixed this. Wax stuck well to the print, so spruing wasn’t
an issue. Siraya Tech assured me any burnout used by
most common plasters will work fine, and I have to say it has for me. I’ve genuinely
done nothing different to normal. I have consistently found burnout to be clean
and I’ve produced some castings that’s I’ve been thrilled with.
The one issue I have encountered is typical to all castable resins I believe and that’s
freshness, for want of a better term. Most resins recommend you filter and rebottle
immediately after use, and for testing purposes I kept the resin in the tray for 3 weeks.
I stirred the resin well and printed with it, and everything seemed fine, but the casting
had its share of flaws. So remember, print and rebottle your castable resin as soon as
possible – not just this brand, but with all brands.
So, we have a castable resin that prints great, sands great and casts perfectly. That means
it must cost a fortune, right? Well, it’s a speciality resin so it’s
not going to be a rock-bottom price, but it came on sale in the US on Tuesday 18th May
and was sold out by Thursday 20th May, all at the bargain price of just $75 dollars.
And I’m thrilled to say most of those bottles went to my viewers who took my tip and got
in their quickly. But if you weren’t lucky enough to get one, they’ll be back in 2
to 3 weeks I’m told, so watch out for them. And if you’re not in the US, don’t worry,
Siraya Tech will be shipping worldwide soon. I’ll try to let you know when.
But $75 is an excellent price for a castable resin that works as well as this one, and
remember, for that money you get a 1Kg bottle with the best part of a litre inside. So that’s
great value. You may think it hard for me to be completely
impartial with this review, but I assure you, no money has changed hands. I volunteered
for this task and other than a free bottle of resin, Siraya Tech has given me nothing
and made no demands upon me. And those that know me best know my honesty
won’t allow me to feed you guys *##%&^!. So…
Cleaning is a pain. It’s quite involved with both IPA and water rinses. UV curing
in glycerine leads to yet more rinsing and washing.
And the cleaning doesn’t stop there because this purple is strong and you’ll find yourself
cleaning your equipment much more thoroughly than normal.
But do you know what, these problems are no big deal. What seems fiddly and time-consuming
the first time around quickly becomes the norm and frankly not all that involved. It’s
certainly not difficult. You can try and ignore some of these steps if you wish, but they
were the ones suggested to me by Siraya Tech and I found that they worked great – so
I’ll be sticking to them. The prints were as good as those I’ve achieved
with far more expensive resins and the castings were equally impressive.
And at this fabulous price, more people are going to be able to try casting and those
of us already loving the hobby can spend our savings on something else. But it won’t
be just amateurs that will be using this resin. There’s plenty of professionals seeking
a quality resin at an affordable price and finally I think we’ve found it.
I’m confident to say Siraya Tech have produced an excellent resin here that in the hands
of a professional will work wonders - as in the hands of this amateur, it’s proven to
be pretty darn good I think you’ll agree. So, if you’ve never bought a castable resin
before, buy this one. It’s affordable and it will work for you, with no printing or
casting issues typically associated with far more expensive resins. And if you’re experienced
with castable resins, give this one a try. You’re likely be thrilled by the results
and save yourself a bundle in the future. It’s new, so there’s not many on the shelves
yet and They’re selling out as soon as they come in. But that tells you something, doesn’t
it? So keep an eye out for when next available. My final verdict? Siraya Tech Cast is an absolute
winner. So that’s it for this video guys. Feel free
to drop me your questions or comments and I’ll do my best to reply.
Take care and thanks for watching.