This is genuinely one of the best ways to join parts and fuse the seams. You can dig in further and fold back over if you want a really strong bond, great for cosplay helmets and props. Also you know that initial swipe line that printers run along the side of the bed before starting a print? They make for great scrap plastic to fill in the seams! Same goes for thinner rafts.
If you know ahead of time that you're going to be welding/filling seams like this then add a little brim to the part, but don't remove it, then your material is ready and waiting for you.
if you used something to hold the work. you could then feed with one hand and melt with the other, like Tig welding, or gas welding... I think getting the right amount of filler material is 80% of the battle with plastic welding.
Some people use temperature controlled wood burning tools (essentially soldering irons) to smooth the entire model. You may find that wood burning tips may be better shaped for the task than regular pointed soldering iron tips.
This is a great way to blend seams. May I suggest using a 3D pen for filling in any gaps instead of trying to fit random bits of scrap. Just use the same filament used to print the model and you've got a perfect match.
Been doing PLA welding ever since I saw Frank Built video a long time ago and never went back to glue. It's by far the best way to weld 2 pieces together. Very strong conections between the 2 parts and it does not take that much time if you consider the time you take on putting the seem, wait for it to fully dry, sand, putting again... This is for sure the best way.
Another idea I have (I haven't tried it but it might work especially for this kind of model) is to add some green stuff and make very small needle like shapes, put some green stuff in the seam and then put the solidified needle like green stuff on top to look like the stiches from a scar. With a bit of practice you could get a cool look I think.
If you have a small, spoon-shaped tip, using it at the lowest temp you can get away with makes a great burnishing tool, especially for concave and convex areas.
Really cool idea. So for me what I would do first and what is working for me is the combo is I use my heat gun on the part with a little bit of extra filament and that gives me a great bond and then the filling of the crack actually fills from the inside out instead of having use the heat gun or the welder on the outside in some cases but having to use the welder has become needed depending on the gap etc. so this is definitely next level stuff you shared. Thank you as always be well be you
gonna try this out! I have been using a little trick in my prints: i delaminate the brim of the print and fill the gaps with ir, with ca adhesive. Once its dry, I just cut the excess. You way looks sick
Cudo's on a great video. I am sure many of us has a resume print with a gap. So this is the way to fix that gap and not loose another day and filament reprinting a damaged part.
You could have also used that flat tip to flatten the rough areas where the support was. That can help the fit better than trying to grind it away with any tools or hand sanding. Great video, but yes this would have been a better resin print lol. You should do a video showing the difference in weight when your printing in pla vs resin. Resin seems much heavier to me.
I join parts with glue and then cover the seams with a 3D pen uaing the same filament. You get a great weld and fill gaps. A wood carving set of tools are great for trimming any high spots and matching textures or geometry. Very strong.
Instead of using an iron that can burn your fingers, you can just use 50 cents of greenstuff epoxy, press it in the seam, smooth it over with a wet finger, and call it a day.
@3:10 Be careful! I'm too used to breaking my supports off like this and I just got my pliers break off and fly at a tremendously dangerous speed. This twisting motion puts way too much strain on the pliers. I switched to some heavier duty wire cutters when fighting against unruly supports and while it is a bit harder to maneuver, it feels so much safer.
hey jesse i use a heatgun to heat up the nub that pushses into the hole i get it a little warm then i put them together an it molds it self to the hole no more sanding and you dont get big gaps in between joints
If your iron can utilize exchangeable tips, look for a set of pyography (wood burning) tips. There are some wide flat shaped tips that might work really well.
Green stuff works great and it’s old school from metal miniature days. If you have a small break or a print support digs a chunk out of a mini and leaves a hole. Green stuff can fix it. Wet you fingers and mold the greenstuff in the hole. Or use it to bind two pieces like the arms with super glue.
Correct me if I'm wrong. PLA is a natural, plant based plastic filament material, so when working with it under heat, respiration protection shouldn't be necessary as any fumes generated wouldn't be harmful (like ABS would be).
I use a 3d pen and a wood burning kit the same way. The pen lets me lay a weld line of material in the joint then I can use the various wood burning tips to smooth things out.
Sweet! Just what I was looking for... I have a mask that was sliced into two pieces and the seams are... unseemly. Tiny or tight spots could be smoothed with a heated wire loop. NOTE: Just don't run your probe any hotter than 185 or 190. Any hotter and you run the risk of plastic discoloration. My above mentioned mask (in blue) now has some unsightly greenish tinge to it.
Why oh why did they have that square part stick out of the legs instead of also having a square hole in the legs and a separately printed cube to put between both parts? That would have avoided that rough part as you would not have had supports there... The same holds for the arms ...
One more tip - use Perfect Plastic Putty with a wet painting brush for filling in holes/gaps. Because it's water based, you can get a smooth finish and do not need to sand.
Uncle Jessy, big fan, I work in the props and restoration industry, we use a 3d pen and temp controlled iron.. for a good number of years. I put up a video on my channel about how to smooth PLA and filament prints. I use printer filament to repair motorcycle fairings, and other plastics with invisible results. I'm not going to post my link etc.. give me a nudge and i'll show you what i use. I'll have another video up soon, but i don't want to try self promote on your channel out of respect. x Matt :)
This is also a better method than glueing parts together used for props, like armour or helmets that need to be printed in multiple pieces. It is essentially plastic welding.
Been doing this for years?. For the gap filling, I use a 3D pen, then I come with the temp controlled soldering iron for flattening and additional merging.
This is the process I use every time to bring my helmets together. I have a big box of scrap prints & old rafts that I constantly use. The only time I find this method is not useful is when you have a print with allot of details, I 3d printed Princess Shuri helmet and had to get creative lol.
I find it neat that the first videos of yours I saw were resin and I had a filament printer, but now I'm getting into resin and your comment about not liking the tiny supports made me laugh 😂
Maybe if you have a 3d printer pen with some sort of silicone cover to keep if from damaging the print you could use that to fill and then solder 🤔 I often use mine to join parts from the back or where it won't be visible
Great work as always uncle Jessy! Please please consider wearing protective equipment for your eyes, on one moment a the video there is a support that blast offs upwards. It could have easily damaged your eyes. Keep up the great work!
Heat won't work for resin. I use a tiny paint brush to drop or brush some liquid resin in the spot, then flash cure with with a UV flashlight (torch). Then using sandpaper, files or whatever fits to contour or smooth out the resin filled area.
I print with a lot of silk material so when I have a mess up like this it's really hard to fix it like this, even though it's what I do because it's impossible to have any kind of blemish on silk and it not show. So I just make it end up looking still terrible but at least it's back together. Lol!
I'm having the same issues with the tree supports. No matter what, I set the z gap distance to it. Always fuses to the model no matter what. I've tried lowering the temperature and it does the same thing. I don't have that issue with Cura with the organic tree supports just prusa. I'm kinda at a loss..
I recently started using a cheap 3D pen to fill gaps. If you do it well, the seams become almost invisible 🙂. Also stronger bond than only using superglue
@@joed899 i put the speed to slowest, and then gently moved along the small gap. I also use the same filament as the print. Do know that I still need practice, but sometimes I get 'welds' that I'm proud of 🙂 The main trick is the speed of your own movement along the gap. You'll have to time it right, to get a nice weld
I use a 25w soldering iron is very controlled for welding and smoothing prints I use my thin prime line as welding rods they fit right into the gap you want a small round tip with a flat head it can weld such a thin line it's almost unnoticeable especially if you're painting it an can follow smaller details I used it to re sculpt the finger lines that failed on my small batman statue you would never even no lol
I think rubberised putty would be the best way, The black High Temperature Sealant does a pretty awesome job too By Sika. And you don't need much at all one 300grm tube would last a far while. 👍🇦🇺Anyway that's my 2c worth.
Love your videos, and appreciate you still using Neptune machines even tho you could print them on X1C. But let's be honest I think you are missing one very important piece of safety equipment at 3:00. I saw these cutters snap too many times already. This would leave you blind.
Now I have no idea what your results are going to look like but I'm just going to say from the get go that just because they're both temperature controlled soldering irons that does not mean you're going to get similar results at all. The pinecil v2 they were using is a fantastic budget soldering iron, but it has a very unique design with specialized smaller tips both based heavily on the TS100 series of soldering irons by miniware.
After I melt joints etc, I just smear in liquid nails... its like toothpaste in consistency, give you a few mins work time, and sets like a tough plastic. Plus it's dirt cheap. Never failed me yet :)
didnt know that these printers can do such detailed prints. Im still thinking of a resin printer but maybe i should check it out more and get one like this
I apologize if this was asked as I did try to look through all of the comments. What is the 3d goop you used? I have been using IPS SCIFRIP #16 FOR acrylics and it seems to work great for pla however it is kind of pricey. Like 13 bucks a tube.
Just bought my first 3d printer, the Elegoo Neptune 3 Max. How did you get the printing to be so smooth? I find it almost looks like resin and can't see any layer lines.
It's up to the designer to make seam areas buildable. The catchphrase is Design for Manufacture. Areas where for instance the ankles attached to the shoe covered most of the seams in the model. In any field it's easy to design things that can't be built, or built right/fast/easy.
You could also do what granite and carpenters do by pulverizing some leftover supports legs into powder and mix that powder into a small amount of that glue resin. If you ever had to repair a granite chip you would know what I mean.
so a tip from me to con'troll' the flying of the tree supports is by using some needle nose printers so instead of cutting the support it just grabs it use it or don't ill still watch your videos ❤️
This is genuinely one of the best ways to join parts and fuse the seams. You can dig in further and fold back over if you want a really strong bond, great for cosplay helmets and props. Also you know that initial swipe line that printers run along the side of the bed before starting a print? They make for great scrap plastic to fill in the seams! Same goes for thinner rafts.
If you know ahead of time that you're going to be welding/filling seams like this then add a little brim to the part, but don't remove it, then your material is ready and waiting for you.
This is a big-brain move! printing something atm that needs seam welding and its using brim. ill definitely try to leave it on and use as filler.
That’s actually genius
Yo thanks for that tip
Genius
if you used something to hold the work. you could then feed with one hand and melt with the other, like Tig welding, or gas welding... I think getting the right amount of filler material is 80% of the battle with plastic welding.
You are 100% correct. I need a large set of helping hands for these prints 🤣
@@UncleJessy Why not 3D print some 🤣 I heard you have a printer big enough to handle it.
@@UncleJessy did you quit resin printing? Haven’t seen a resin video from you in forever my dude! Either way, hope alls well!
isnt that just a 3d pen tho?
@@jimpoulos01 3d pen would be mig welding ;)
Some people use temperature controlled wood burning tools (essentially soldering irons) to smooth the entire model. You may find that wood burning tips may be better shaped for the task than regular pointed soldering iron tips.
Nice! Yeah I’m thinking the wood burner might have some large flat options
indeed, i have a cheap woodburning kit i got from Walmart a year or two ago and it works amazingly.
This is a great way to blend seams. May I suggest using a 3D pen for filling in any gaps instead of trying to fit random bits of scrap. Just use the same filament used to print the model and you've got a perfect match.
Jess, you can also pick up a woodburning kit that has a bunch of different tips to help expand your repertoire of options available
Awesome! Will take a look at that
Been doing PLA welding ever since I saw Frank Built video a long time ago and never went back to glue. It's by far the best way to weld 2 pieces together. Very strong conections between the 2 parts and it does not take that much time if you consider the time you take on putting the seem, wait for it to fully dry, sand, putting again... This is for sure the best way.
2:17
That’s gonna help blend the “seaman” a little bit better
😅
Another idea I have (I haven't tried it but it might work especially for this kind of model) is to add some green stuff and make very small needle like shapes, put some green stuff in the seam and then put the solidified needle like green stuff on top to look like the stiches from a scar.
With a bit of practice you could get a cool look I think.
If you have a small, spoon-shaped tip, using it at the lowest temp you can get away with makes a great burnishing tool, especially for concave and convex areas.
Really cool idea. So for me what I would do first and what is working for me is the combo is I use my heat gun on the part with a little bit of extra filament and that gives me a great bond and then the filling of the crack actually fills from the inside out instead of having use the heat gun or the welder on the outside in some cases but having to use the welder has become needed depending on the gap etc. so this is definitely next level stuff you shared. Thank you as always be well be you
gonna try this out! I have been using a little trick in my prints: i delaminate the brim of the print and fill the gaps with ir, with ca adhesive. Once its dry, I just cut the excess. You way looks sick
Bill Duran from Punished Props showed this method on one of his helmet builds as well. Got a super smooth finish after light touch up sanding.
Oh man Bill is the ultimate prop making master!
Cudo's on a great video.
I am sure many of us has a resume print with a gap. So this is the way to fix that gap and not loose another day and filament reprinting a damaged part.
finally a smoothing tip that is quite useful instead of a clickbait ahah
thanks for sharing!
You could have also used that flat tip to flatten the rough areas where the support was. That can help the fit better than trying to grind it away with any tools or hand sanding. Great video, but yes this would have been a better resin print lol. You should do a video showing the difference in weight when your printing in pla vs resin. Resin seems much heavier to me.
I join parts with glue and then cover the seams with a 3D pen uaing the same filament. You get a great weld and fill gaps. A wood carving set of tools are great for trimming any high spots and matching textures or geometry. Very strong.
Instead of using an iron that can burn your fingers, you can just use 50 cents of greenstuff epoxy, press it in the seam, smooth it over with a wet finger, and call it a day.
Hi i downloaded a PLA glue gun stick and used in my gluegun , works really well for infill , repairing ect,
@3:10 Be careful! I'm too used to breaking my supports off like this and I just got my pliers break off and fly at a tremendously dangerous speed. This twisting motion puts way too much strain on the pliers. I switched to some heavier duty wire cutters when fighting against unruly supports and while it is a bit harder to maneuver, it feels so much safer.
Yeah i for sure should be wearing some safety glasses
hey jesse i use a heatgun to heat up the nub that pushses into the hole i get it a little warm then i put them together an it molds it self to the hole no more sanding and you dont get big gaps in between joints
If your iron can utilize exchangeable tips, look for a set of pyography (wood burning) tips. There are some wide flat shaped tips that might work really well.
Green stuff works great and it’s old school from metal miniature days. If you have a small break or a print support digs a chunk out of a mini and leaves a hole. Green stuff can fix it. Wet you fingers and mold the greenstuff in the hole. Or use it to bind two pieces like the arms with super glue.
Correct me if I'm wrong. PLA is a natural, plant based plastic filament material, so when working with it under heat, respiration protection shouldn't be necessary as any fumes generated wouldn't be harmful (like ABS would be).
I use a 3d pen and a wood burning kit the same way. The pen lets me lay a weld line of material in the joint then I can use the various wood burning tips to smooth things out.
Sweet! Just what I was looking for... I have a mask that was sliced into two pieces and the seams are... unseemly. Tiny or tight spots could be smoothed with a heated wire loop.
NOTE: Just don't run your probe any hotter than 185 or 190. Any hotter and you run the risk of plastic discoloration. My above mentioned mask (in blue) now has some unsightly greenish tinge to it.
Why oh why did they have that square part stick out of the legs instead of also having a square hole in the legs and a separately printed cube to put between both parts? That would have avoided that rough part as you would not have had supports there... The same holds for the arms ...
One more tip - use Perfect Plastic Putty with a wet painting brush for filling in holes/gaps. Because it's water based, you can get a smooth finish and do not need to sand.
Uncle Jessy, big fan, I work in the props and restoration industry, we use a 3d pen and temp controlled iron.. for a good number of years. I put up a video on my channel about how to smooth PLA and filament prints. I use printer filament to repair motorcycle fairings, and other plastics with invisible results. I'm not going to post my link etc.. give me a nudge and i'll show you what i use. I'll have another video up soon, but i don't want to try self promote on your channel out of respect. x Matt :)
You could use a 3D pen to fill the gaps first and then the soldering iron to make it smooth.
On the tree supports in Cura, I use a 1.5 mm gap; can you do the same with Prusa?
Yeah I think I need to bump it up a bit
This is also a better method than glueing parts together used for props, like armour or helmets that need to be printed in multiple pieces. It is essentially plastic welding.
Cool. Going to have to give this a try.
Hmm, ordered a couple of those - going to try it with one of the 3d pens I have lying around. Fill the gaps with the pen, smooth it with the iron.
Been doing this for years?. For the gap filling, I use a 3D pen, then I come with the temp controlled soldering iron for flattening and additional merging.
Pro-tip - wear safety glasses when you're removing supports. The way those go flying it is super easy to take one to the eye. Ask me how I know...
This is the process I use every time to bring my helmets together. I have a big box of scrap prints & old rafts that I constantly use. The only time I find this method is not useful is when you have a print with allot of details, I 3d printed Princess Shuri helmet and had to get creative lol.
Year will make for a real solid connection
2:17 Blend the wHAT IN?!
Would be cool is the cuts had chamfers that way you could use a piece of filament as solder
remember that thing called a hair dryer i find it also helps to remove supports from pla prints :)
hay Jessy getting a lot of spam here matey :)
That skull with tentacles on your desk is beautiful! Do you have a link to the model for it?!
For PLA's testers modeling cement to glue parts together. It works better than soldering iron with much better results.
I find it neat that the first videos of yours I saw were resin and I had a filament printer, but now I'm getting into resin and your comment about not liking the tiny supports made me laugh 😂
this seems like a nice way to fill seams, do you think it would work with resin aswel? since resin wouldnt warp under the temp?
Not so much I think. Still dripping in some resin and a uv light might work best
I use a wood burning kit with temperature adjustment. It comes with a ton of different tips. About 19 bucks from Walmart!
Seeing the loose end of your PLA in that spool brought back memories of a 5 day print failing after 3 days because it got tangled
That came out great!
Thanks! Was fun to try out
Maybe if you have a 3d printer pen with some sort of silicone cover to keep if from damaging the print you could use that to fill and then solder 🤔 I often use mine to join parts from the back or where it won't be visible
Great work as always uncle Jessy! Please please consider wearing protective equipment for your eyes, on one moment a the video there is a support that blast offs upwards. It could have easily damaged your eyes. Keep up the great work!
Yeah I don't take off supports anymore without wearing safety glasses after I almost got hit in the eye. It's important.
Nice! What about for Resin? just use a UV torch and resin or can you use heat as well?
Heat won't work for resin. I use a tiny paint brush to drop or brush some liquid resin in the spot, then flash cure with with a UV flashlight (torch).
Then using sandpaper, files or whatever fits to contour or smooth out the resin filled area.
It can work if you carefully drip in and. Cure but it’s a lot more difficult since it’s resin.
Might just continue with the old fashioned baking soda and resin method so it's easier to work with
Surely "Support Free" is in contrast to an STL with the supports modelled in? As opposed to meaning that one needn't use supports to print the parts.
I print with a lot of silk material so when I have a mess up like this it's really hard to fix it like this, even though it's what I do because it's impossible to have any kind of blemish on silk and it not show. So I just make it end up looking still terrible but at least it's back together. Lol!
Have you tried support interface settings to decrease the issues between the print and support?
Yeah continuing to play around with that to find a happy medium
Your fdm prints are so smooth do you have a setting Tutorial?
just fyi, the yotube auto-generated captions play you a small trick at 2:19. Let's just say that they don't talk about "help blend the seam in".
Would setting the Slicer to Iron the surface help with the arms?
I'm having the same issues with the tree supports. No matter what, I set the z gap distance to it. Always fuses to the model no matter what. I've tried lowering the temperature and it does the same thing. I don't have that issue with Cura with the organic tree supports just prusa. I'm kinda at a loss..
pretty genius, might use this for my upcoming chair project
Any Recommendations on how to solve this problem with resin printing?
Tip: print in higher quality
I recently started using a cheap 3D pen to fill gaps. If you do it well, the seams become almost invisible 🙂. Also stronger bond than only using superglue
I'd like to know your secret as my 3d pen did a terrible job and would barely stick. I even used the same roll of filament.
@@joed899 i put the speed to slowest, and then gently moved along the small gap. I also use the same filament as the print.
Do know that I still need practice, but sometimes I get 'welds' that I'm proud of 🙂
The main trick is the speed of your own movement along the gap. You'll have to time it right, to get a nice weld
I JUST bought a soldering iron with temperature control, can't wait to try it on my Diablo figure.
Very nice trick !
Sometimes i use pva glue ( wood glue ) + hot water + play doh.
To have easy support : add 0.1 to height.
I use a 25w soldering iron is very controlled for welding and smoothing prints I use my thin prime line as welding rods they fit right into the gap you want a small round tip with a flat head it can weld such a thin line it's almost unnoticeable especially if you're painting it an can follow smaller details I used it to re sculpt the finger lines that failed on my small batman statue you would never even no lol
Very cool trick and can work in a pinch. I still think the resin / baby powder trick is the best way to fill gaps.
Great video!! Thanks for the tip!
Was really fun to try out. Glad to see the original poster over on reddit
Also wanted to say that I really enjoyed that stream you did with @nikkoindustries and @franklybuilt !
That thumbnail is awesome; the welding technique works really well!
😂🤘
Perfect timing for my iron man Mk3 build, gonna weld the shins thanks!
getting my printer tomorrow, and this is going to be something I try once i learn how to use it!!!!!!
What about just heating up the nozzle and extruding some filament to provider filler material?
Superbe impression..! 🤩🤤👍
Hah! Dat Shaco ref thumbnail! Also using a solder can be a great time saver compared to putty + sanding!
I have that Vanilla Bean PLA. I think it was marble but Joel got to rename it.
I think rubberised putty would be the best way, The black High Temperature Sealant does a pretty awesome job too By Sika. And you don't need much at all one 300grm tube would last a far while. 👍🇦🇺Anyway that's my 2c worth.
Nice technique! Where did you get the gloop?
surprised you found it last year, been doing this for ages with figure prints and gaps, its the same concept as welding, more or less.
Love your videos, and appreciate you still using Neptune machines even tho you could print them on X1C. But let's be honest I think you are missing one very important piece of safety equipment at 3:00. I saw these cutters snap too many times already. This would leave you blind.
Now I have no idea what your results are going to look like but I'm just going to say from the get go that just because they're both temperature controlled soldering irons that does not mean you're going to get similar results at all. The pinecil v2 they were using is a fantastic budget soldering iron, but it has a very unique design with specialized smaller tips both based heavily on the TS100 series of soldering irons by miniware.
would a 3D pen be useful with the soldering iron as well?
After I melt joints etc, I just smear in liquid nails... its like toothpaste in consistency, give you a few mins work time, and sets like a tough plastic. Plus it's dirt cheap. Never failed me yet :)
didnt know that these printers can do such detailed prints. Im still thinking of a resin printer but maybe i should check it out more and get one like this
Very beautifully done
I apologize if this was asked as I did try to look through all of the comments. What is the 3d goop you used? I have been using IPS SCIFRIP #16 FOR acrylics and it seems to work great for pla however it is kind of pricey. Like 13 bucks a tube.
Hey Mr Jessy, do you know when will the neptune be available to buy? Which other printer would you sugest as an alternative?
could you do a video on adding the wireless card you added to the neptune 2 to the 3 pro if it possble as i havent seen anthing about t
What nozzle size are you using on your Neptune? Is it the standard 0.4mm one or did you change it out?
Yes I have been doing this recently since it welded much better than super glue.. all those skirts are getting used to glue pieces together..
Just bought my first 3d printer, the Elegoo Neptune 3 Max. How did you get the printing to be so smooth? I find it almost looks like resin and can't see any layer lines.
2:17 wut? even the subtittles understand that 😅
I've seen cosplayers recommend the same technique. Those arms came out looking pretty good!
What kind of spot putty do you recommend?
Only problem is if you have textured details, this method will cover those up and it will be very noticeable
Oh yeah that could be a massive challenge. For sure not applicable to all prints
It's up to the designer to make seam areas buildable. The catchphrase is Design for Manufacture. Areas where for instance the ankles attached to the shoe covered most of the seams in the model. In any field it's easy to design things that can't be built, or built right/fast/easy.
You could also do what granite and carpenters do by pulverizing some leftover supports legs into powder and mix that powder into a small amount of that glue resin. If you ever had to repair a granite chip you would know what I mean.
Ha,Ha I just bought that exact model soldering iron to do some soldering last month. Guess I can give it a try.
This was interesting. I've seen Frankly Built's video on this and decided to give this a try after a failed print.
Wish you shared the link to the soldering iron. 😐
Do you think this would work for larger resin prints?
so a tip from me to con'troll' the flying of the tree supports is by using some needle nose printers so instead of cutting the support it just grabs it use it or don't ill still watch your videos ❤️
Do you have any putty tools? Maybe swipe it smooth with one of those while its in a semi molten state?
Man the quality was so high in that thumbnail I thought this was a resin welding tutorial 🤯
What is that octopus skull model you have!?