Acetone vapor polishing

I saw this and was amazed at the end result I wonder what the fumes are like

 

I just thought of a few ideas for smaller pieces probably less than 8 inches in length in any direction. I used something like this for cleaning my RC Airplane engine and it was amazing but that is a different story it is the vessel I am thinking about...a crockpot or pressure cooker to seal in vapors for a time frame of only 5-10 minutesI do not think the pressure would be an issue in a pressure cooker but a small lid to a jar to hold a small amount of acetone a small screen elevated above the acetone where you place the object warm it up and you are good to go.

Anybody see problems with this.

sort of inline with the smoothing station by Matthias

 

I've started playing around with this acetone vapor polishing. Personally, I don't like the way it looks, but most of what I like printing is fine detail work. I tried it on something like my avatar and it was horrible. About 8 minutes in a pint size sealed jar with a tablespoon of acetone. Yes, probably asking for a small explosion, but that's why I limited it to 1 tablespoon.

I've also been experimenting with printing patterns or images around the perimeter of small cylinders to sell as beads. So far, I say 'meh'. We'll see. If I make something good I'll post it.

I did try it on my shell (http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:53559) and it gave a cool effect. I'm also making mold blanks for a customer and he loves it, so I guess it just depends on the part.

 

I was wondering how much shrinkage you see if any I was thinking about using it on the cap pieces for my CUBORG. I was actually going to insert some unused filament into the label area that actually spells CUBORG and then vapor polish the whole thing hopefully effectively slight melting the filament into place. I was also wondering about how it would fit right now the tolerance is pretty tight. I was also thinking of doing just the part that was visible. so if I made a base the part could actually assemble into but made from PLA which the acetone won't touch then only the outside would be directly in contact with the fumes and hopefully not lose as much from the original size specification.

 

First, I guess as a general update from post #10. I vapor polish nearly everything I make now. I use the Presto fryer from the solidoodle forum. It takes a little bit of care and quick reaction, but you can definitely get great results. As long as your detail isn't too super fine, you also can keep some good detail.

I haven't tried polishing anything with particularly tight tolerances, so not sure how it would turn out. The material does swell rather than shrink.

Don't confuse PLA not being acetone 'vapor polishable' with PLA being chemically resistant to acetone. Your PLA will be pretty messed up if vapor polish it with acetone. Try soaking a piece of PLA filament in acetone for a while and see what happens. Vapor polishing will do the same thing, but much much faster.

 

I was simply going to uses it as a cover for the the under side of the ABS top cap piece so it would not be affected by the acetone vapor. I would like the polish only on the outside portion the under side will never be seen and that is where the pins and slide reside so they can be attached I actually would not care what happens to the PLA as long as I could use for a base several times but maybe I should try some other idea to mask the bottom side of the cap pieces.

 

Electro is DMC something we can get without having a permit or anything????? LOL????what are its characteristics I am assuming just as flammable etc. will we need a chemical suit to use it is the process the same not a chemist so I don't know.

 

I'd be interested in looking at your test results if you can share. I've seen a few descriptions of people planning on doing destructive testing and analysis on 3D printed parts, but I haven't seen any results published yet.

Even just some dogbone testing with different infills, shells, layer heights and temperatures would be neat, but if you've done something like that where you're also adding in factors of vapor polishing with different solvents and annealing profiles, I think that would be a really interesting read.

 

thanks 1d1 that helps alot I keep forgetting about wikipedia