Wha's up every one, Tom here.
And at this point it can be considered pretty
much common knowledge that you can smooth
out the layer lines of 3D printed parts made
from ABS, HIPS and delikes with an acetone
vapor bath.
But I was told that this should also work
on some type of PLA like the ones from Dasfilament.
I was intrigued because the common understanding
is that PLA shouldn't be affected by acetone
at all.
But I mean I've got plenty of PLA printed
parts laying around so why not just try it
out.
So acetone is actually pretty cheap to get
hold of.
This 1-liter bottle cost me just 2.99€ and
I use it liberally for things like cleaning
paint stripping and anything that's similar
to that.
As a first step just to try and see if acetone
had any effect on PLA at all I decided just
to dunk a piece in the acetone liquid and
after leaving it in there for a few seconds
it started to get really sticky and gewy on
the surface and you could feel that layer
coming off when you are rubbing it with your
fingers.
Parts that are dunked in acetone like this
for an extended amount of time do get smoothed
out but they do loose a lot of their stiffness
and I also think they loose a lot of strength
so that not really recommended, but it got
me thinking before we even get in to the acetone
vapor smoothing part I wanted to try out if
we could actually solvent weld two parts of
PLA together.
Essentially the way you do that with ABS or
PLA in this case is you take both sides brush
some acetone on it let it dissolve just the
surface and the press those two parts together,
it should get tacký and sticky right away
but it takes a few minutes or hours depending
on how much acetone you put on there and how
big the surface is to reach its full final
strength so I tried exactly that with two
clean surfaces of PLA pressed them together
and while it was clear that they were immediately
sticking together I just set them aside for
now.
For the vapor smoothing i'm going to use the
tissues in the bucket method this is not a
method I came up with I picked this up from
someone else and essentially what you do to
get a very thick and consistent acetone vapor
is you take a few pieces of tissue paper use
magnets to snap them to the inside of an old
paint bucket and then soak those tissues with
acetone.
If you want you can use some heat to speed
up the acetone evaporation but in general
that is not really needed if you get the bottle
a good shake beforehand and turn it around
a bit since what you dunk into the vapor bath
is going to have a dissolved and ideally a
liquid surface to it you need some sort of
carrier to lift it out once your smoothing
process is done I decided to just use this
angle bracket put the benchy on there dunked
it in and pulled it out after about 30 seconds
or so, at that pont it was clear that the
acetone was doing something the part felt
soft and squishy on the surface but
there wasn't any noticable smoothing going on
the one thing I did notce was that the surface
was getting a bit dull but that was about
it so I gave the bucket a good heatup again
refilled some acetone and set the timer to
five minutes put the benchy back into the
bucket and waited it out after five minutes
it was obvious that the effect was a bit stronger
that with the shorter test but other than
a softer and even less glossy surface there
wasn't really any smootging going on yet so
I decided to dunk this part in and just leave
it for about an hour now while that is soaking
in let's check back on the acetone welded
PLA parts and see if we can seperate them
and by the feels of it these have really bonded
well even hammering a screwdriver between
the two parts didn't seperate them the screwdrived
did deform the parts but they didn't come
apart in this case I'd say these are very
properley welded together there were no extra
adhesive used there was no super glue or epoxy
or anything else involved there was just two
natural non sanded even PLA surfaces now let's
check back on the vapor smooth zoid buddah
this print has been in the acetone vapor for
a good hour or more and still it dosen't look
like the acetone vapor really did smooth anything
out yes the part is slowley becoming softer
and more squichey but there is not a lot of
melting and smooting going on so I guess if
you would really submerge you parts in actual
liquid acetone and the smere it around with
your fingers that could work but acetone vapor
smoothing for PLA is prittey much busted at
this point and just to cross check if the
acetone bucket was even working at all I took
a part printed from regular ABS dunked that
in there for twenty seconds pulled it out
and boom perfectley smooth I mean just look
at that isn't that an attracktive look for
the most part the trick was the vapor smooting
ABS was not to leave the parts in there for
to long just let him soak but to give it quick
dunkes in a highley consentrated acetone vapor
that way you only dissolve the surface and
don't get the entire part muchy but that in
detail is a topic for another video this video
is sponsored by AlephObjects inc a free sofrware
libre innovasion and an open source hardware
company headquarted in Loveland Colorado USA
and makers of Lulzbot 3D printers watch my
review of both Lulzbot 3D printers here and
check the links in the video description for
more info on these machines straight from
AlephObjects so okey while acetone dosen't
really do much for PLA when it comes to vapor
smoothing other than maybe making the surface
a bit reflective it does work perfectley for
welding two PLA parts together witch I didn't
expect honestley so I hope you learned something
today aswell if you did leave this video a
like subscribe and maybe even consider this
channel with a monthley pledge over on Patreon
altso if you want to buy some acetone you
can acually do that on amazon the affiliate
links that are in video description below
that's it for today thanks for watching and
I see you in the next one.
