Comment on Hot take: 3D printing toys kinda sucks

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squaresinger@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

Total agreement.

Btw: If you want to smooth your prints, get a hot-air soldering station. Set it to 300°C and carefully melt the surface. Then use a flat piece of metal and carefully push it to the molten surface. You have to be careful to only melt the outer perimeter without melting the inner structure, so that the shape stays intact. It smooths much better than sanding while at the same time annealing the plastic and creating a much stronger layer bond.

And it’s much faster than sanding.

In general, these hot-air soldering stations are perfect for reworking plastics, not only 3D prints.

The sauce shelf in my fridge cracked apart due to too many sauces being jammed into it. I used the hot-air soldering station to weld the broken pieces together.

I paid around €50 for mine, which is a very nice temperature-controlled one that goes up to 480°C. Can only recommend.

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