Comment on Making PLA 0.15mm smooth, glossy and safer. How well will just resin work?
finalarbiter@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
A nice smooth gloss is actually difficult to achieve. It requires a lot of fill and sanding on the substrate to make a perfect surface for the gloss coat to go down evenly. Your definitely-not-a-bong will reflect every layer line and look super uneven if you haven’t done the work to sand and finish the surface underneath.
Also, I would generally not recommend making something you are going to put in your mouth from a 3D-printer (medical applications aside, which are very different from what’s being discussed here). 3D-printed widgets typically aren’t food safe, regardless of whether the material itself is generally considered food safe, as the layer lines create crevices that are difficult to clean. If you aren’t willing to sand the piece, your resin coat probably won’t change that.
I assumed (without evidence) the resin would tend to level out rather than retain those layer lines, but I suppose the viscosity might affect that and I don’t know how viscous the once I’m looking at is.
finalarbiter@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
Generally speaking, a coating will conform to the substrate as a function of both viscosity and layer depth. You are right that a more viscous coating is going to be easier to apply and smooth, but it still won’t be particularly smooth unless you did the pre-work to get it there.
That person sanded their print first. There are also some filler-primer paints that will fill the layer line crevices for you, but you still need to sand the surface before applying anything.