Finishing Prints

I'm printing small statues and they're not quite as high quality as I'd like them to be. They still have the characteristic horizontal striations of a 3D print, as well as the occasional small hole or imperfection.

What tools, fillers, primers, etc. do you use for finishing prints?

I have a Dremel with a few bits—not very many. I have sandpaper although it's hard to sand the details of a statue, I really only use the sandpaper for simple shapes. I tried XTC-3D a couple days ago, and it's alright, it's like a thick primer. It takes out all the roughness but won't smooth the horizontal striations that my printer creates, so I really need to smooth it somehow. Maybe there's a dremel tool that'd help me smooth it, but if there is, I don't have it. I saw someone using Bondo putty to do some finishing work and that seems like a good idea, I think I could get some use out of that.

Try [www.smooth-on.com]

If you are printing in ABS you can look into acetone vapor smoothing.

I often use a primer filler to fill in some detail, you can also use spot putty used to fill small scratches and dings in cars, if you do you apply it, wait for it to harden then sand it smooth. Then it can be painted to the desired color. I would hand sand rather than using dremels and such as it's very easy to make things worse. Also power sanding can cause heat build up and end up melting plastic parts. Finishing printed parts is very similar to finishing plastic model parts so you can search on YouTube for this as well, many of the same techniques will work on 3D printed parts.

May be this thread will also helps you