Cool
Hey there, it's Devin with make anything and today we've got a video that should be pretty quick
But it's also really exciting, because we're talking about
Smoothing 3D prints. When you're working with FDM 3D printers like I tend to do on this channel
One of the inherent side effects of the process of FDM printing is that your prints are gonna have layer lines
Regardless of how expensive your printer is or how small you make your layer height, you can almost always see those layer lines.
Usually I'm pretty okay with that
I actually think layer lines can be kind of cool because they're evidence of the process of 3D printing which is also really cool.
But other times you want to smooth out your part - you want it to be nice and shiny and look great
And that's what we're gonna talk about.
If you've spent some time learning about 3D printing you may have heard of some different techniques for smoothing out 3D prints
The most popular is probably ABS smoothing and I've already done a video about that
That's not what we're talking about today
But ABS smoothing is basically where you take an ABS plastic print
Immerse it in a cloud of acetone vapours and that will chemically smooth out the part
Now acetone smoothing is pretty cool and it's relatively easy to do
But what I don't like about it is the fact that you have to print with ABS
which releases fumes while printing and you'll often have to print in an enclosed chamber or suffer warping or
other nasty side effects
So I prefer not to print with ABS and that's why I don't use acetone smoothing too often
Another option is to use special filaments like this PolySmooth filament from PolyMaker and their Polysher machine as shown
In my mini monstera video and that's nice, but it's a process of its own and once again, you're stuck using a specific filament.
Yet another option is to use an epoxy coating like this XTC 3D
I used it in my rock climbing hang board video and as you'll see there
Epoxy is kind of annoying to work with so I am not too much of a fan of this
even though it can work really well for certain uses
But another thing about that is you're adding a material on top of the printed part
So your tolerances are gonna get all messed up and you're not gonna be able to recycle this or anything
So that's kind of annoying
So there's tons of ways to smooth 3D prints that we've known about for a long time
But the one I'm talking about today makes me particularly excited because we're gonna smooth PLA.
PLA is my favorite material because it's easily accessible, It's low cost,
It's easy to print with, it's biodegradable
Everyone loves PLA. So smoothing it is something that a lot of people have wanted to do
I've read about ways to smooth PLA using harsh chemicals like methyl ethyl ketone and other crazy chemical names
but I've been kind of scared off from that because I've heard of
flammability issues and just health hazards. So I never really tried that out. But recently I got sent this really cool product
called 3D Gloop! by a little startup company and this 3D Gloop stuff is interesting. It comes in a liquid form
it comes as a kind of gel in a syringe and they're also working on a spray-on version
but this stuff is marketed as "the best 3D printing adhesive in the known universe"
And while I've only used this stuff for maybe a week so far, I'm really liking it
There are two versions of this: one for PLA and one for ABS
They're both meant to be used for bed adhesion as well as to glue parts together
But what I really liked was the idea that you could smooth prints with this stuff.
I've got some PLA parts I want to smooth. Let's try it out
First off I will mention that like other existing methods of PLA smoothing 3D Gloop! does have some health hazards
And it does need to be treated with care.
So for this experiment I will be wearing a respirator, safety goggles and some Nitrile gloves.
The creators have said that in small concentrations, this stuff is pretty harmless
but since I'm gonna be coating entire prints with 3D Gloop, I will be wearing my respirator just to be sure
I decided to start with a small experiment by coating this low-poly squirtle that was printed using the Palette+ by Mosaic
Let's go ahead and open up this gloop. You can see there is a brush connected to the lid,
and the consistency of the gloop itself is pretty thin and liquidy. Let's just dip this brush and start coating this model
Right off the bat I noticed that this stuff starts acting pretty immediately
So as soon as you start brushing on there
The PLA is gonna start smoothing out and also getting a little bit gummy
So you really want to make sure to do very thin coats.
Here's the model after just one thin coat and as you can see, it's already worked pretty well
The layer lines are nearly invisible in a lot of areas.
On the back here I went a little bit too heavy and it started getting really gummy and messy,
so you definitely don't want to just slop this on when you're trying to smooth your model
And I'm sure that once the spray version of 3D Gloop is released, that will be the ideal method of application for this process
I can tell that it might take a bit of practice and getting used to, to get really clean smooth prints
But I'm already feeling pretty good about this. So I'm gonna go ahead and move on to something a little more extreme
Here we have a model of a cat skull that I printed out for my girlfriend using Filamentum's Vertigo Galaxy,
and I already did a bit of sanding before starting this project
So that should help out a bit
But there are also areas on the bottom that still have all the layer lines so it should still be a good test
I went ahead and started coating on, trying to keep the layers a bit thinner this time,
and once again right off the bat you can see the models start to smooth as I'm brushing this on
Once it gets to that point I found it's good to stop and wait a couple minutes before applying another thin coat
Until you're happy with how smooth it is
I think I ended up doing about three thin coats over the entire model
Before it got to a smoothness that I was happy with.
And while it was very smooth I did notice that this dark black filament got a little bit cloudy.
To deal with that we did a little bit of extra polishing using Brasso metal polish and a paper towel
and that was really effective in bringing back some of that dark colour of this print.
And as you can see it also really started to shine.
At this point, I was pretty impressed and very happy with how the model was looking
But just to see how far we could push it, we decided to do one more step and that was to bring it outside,
put it on top of a few toothpicks, and go over the entire model with some Rust-Oleum Clear Gloss Finish
You can find this stuff at just about any hardware store, and I just gave it one thick coat and let it dry overnight
Here it is after that treatment and now it's just unbelievably shiny
and at the right angle it really catches the gold glitter in this Vertigo Galaxy filament
It really had taken beyond my expectations at this point and I think you'll agree that it's a stunning print
Just look at that golden shimmer and shine. It is so cool
So there you have it guys, smoothed PLA prints
I know I did end up doing a bit of extra post-processing
But I kind of think it's worth it because it came out looking so great
And I'm really excited that this is possible with PLA
I definitely want to play around with this stuff a lot more
But I was just so excited about how well it worked that I had to share with you guys as soon as I could
So there it is. It's 3D Gloop. I'll put information about it in the description
Let me know in the comments what you guys think about this stuff. Is it cool? Is it worth the work?
Is it worth the price? Is there a better way to smooth PLA prints or should we not smooth PLA prints?
Anyways, that's it for today. I'm Devin. This is Make Anything. Don't forget to stay inspired