Cleaner I use for Shapeways

I've been asked many times what cleaner to use for SW items, particularly the Frosted Ultra Detail. So here is the photo evidence. I think pictures speak louder than words. Let the items soak in it but not for more than 15 minutes and rinse carefully under very warm tap water. If you mess it up I hereby put in a disclaimer that I'm not responsible

Karin- You might have posted a diappearing picture??

I'll try this again, file was too big and I had to stop editing to hurry off to a family gathering. But David K Smith has given an alternative that I have no doubt is better. Here is the link to his favorite and I'll go ahead and show you the photo anyway...

Is this the 'same' as Simple Green that I have all over the office ?

Jeff, not at all like Simple Green (can't stomach that stuff!)
This is more like 409 but much better. I use it every day to clean my vector tables. Worked very well for me when i was doing so much SW stuff. I get mine at WalMart.

This is the product I use to clean Shapeways and other RP objects. It's safe to soak the models in Bestine (a.k.a. heptane solvent) because the only thing it dissolves is wax, and once the model is clean, it needs no rinsing. Shapeways models also dry white, instead of translucent yellow, which makes a perfect surface for painting. You can get it at most art supply stores, or online at sites like Dick Blick.

Karin, stony has email me pictures of people who shop at Walmart.

shamoo737 wrote: Karin, stony has email me pictures of people who shop at Walmart.

Yeah, its a rare treat John. Normally i spend my days at Salvation Army and Goodwill!

Thx David ! That's what I used on the old MakeMyModels too. I'll pick up some of this Greed bugar stuff to try too, can use it elseware too.

Did anyone had found something else to clean their Shapeway parts? Those 2 ideas are excellent don't get me wrong, but those products are not available locally for me. Could dishwasher soap work? using a really soft tooth brush with hot water?
Because my last Shapeway order that I've received, the part were quite oily.

Thanks

Ben

Ben, I have bought and cleaned so many SW items and nothing works like Bestine, nothing at all. Had I known you couldn't get it in Canada I would have gladly cleaned them before sending them on to you.

I am looking at the can trying to find the chemical name but alas, there is nothing valuable printed except the address and phone #.
Union Rubber Inc
Trenton, NJ 08606
1-800-334-8219

This material is used for removing rubber cement and gummy labels so maybe you have a similar product. I did find the company address and phone number for you...

Best of luck

Is this it? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heptane

Kelley, I see no resemblance myself but I'm not a rocket scientist. Ask Stony, he is one

I just looked above at what DKS called it and looked that up. I aint no rocket scientist neither

Thank's Karin

Any volatile liquid or solvent can't pass custom, it has to stay on ground for shipping.

I'll try to find other brand that has heptane in it.

Ben

Ha ha! Got this answer on another forum.

Try Xylene... it should dissolve the wax. If it leaves a residue, benzene will dissolve the xylene, acetone will dissolve the benzene, alcohol will dissolve the acetone, and water will dissolve the alcohol.

Just Wow!

Ben

animek wrote: Ha ha! Got this answer on another forum.

Try Xylene... it should dissolve the wax. If it leaves a residue, benzene will dissolve the xylene, acetone will dissolve the benzene, alcohol will dissolve the acetone, and water will dissolve the alcohol.

Just Wow!

Ben

Scissors cut paper, paper covers rock.... That's a rather substantive chemical hierarchy. But what dissolves the water?

Xylene and Heptane...fluids we used in explosives class to blow, stain, hurt and demolish things...

I think I prefer my method of soap/detergent and water combined with manual labour.

Petter

This has kept me up at night many times ever since I started making and printing parts with Shapeways about a year ago. So please excuse my long winded response as I have probably spent too much time and effort into figuring out a quick and easy process that solves all the problems there is with FUD cleanup. But I really wanted a end result that made the product look really clean and with a almost injection molded like finish without a huge amount of finishing time. I know I’m asking way to much out of this rapid prototyping process but I am getting closer with each new model I finish… That being said, there are some factors that I have to come to terms with that are completely out of my control….


I have scoured Shapeways forums for the utopian solution for cleaning FUD parts… I’ve used Bestine and it does work well. But the white surface it leaves behind is oh so slightly textured and it does make the parts just a bit more brittle. Not a big deal but can be a concern when you get to small and thin parts. What I have found that works really well is a $25 ultrasonic jewelry cleaner off of E-Bay and isopropyl alcohol. The trick is to not have it in the alcohol for more than 10 minutes at a time and wash the parts off with cold water when you’re done. You also have make sure the alcohol does not get to hot in the ultrasonic cleaner while its running. Heat is great for removing wax but really bad for FUD parts. FUD’s melting temperature is 80 C but thin parts will start to deform and bend not much over 100 F… My cheap ultrasonic cleaner cycles off after 3 minutes so I stick my finger in after each cycle to make sure it’s not getting to hot…. The end result is a perfectly smooth, clean translucent surfaces, just like acrylic material is supposed to look .

But for real fine fragile parts like cabs with thin A, B and C pillars or railings and such, I use a 1 part liquid Dawn dish washing soap (the original stuff with no hand softener or anti-bacterial chemicals) to 3 parts cold water. It does not heat up as quickly as the alcohol but it does take more time to clean the parts. Baby shampoo works well to but cheap shampoo might have more harsh chemicals and might do more harm than good. Again, rinse the parts off with cold clean water when done.

But there are 2 factors that I have not been able to find an easy solution to. Where ever the support material touches your part while its being printed, you get a crystal like distortion left behind on your part no matter what you use to clean the parts with (Shapeways has finally put a declaimer about this on the FUD page) … The other is the step over lines you get on some of the surfaces. You could fix both of these problems by dictating how the part is printed by trying to keep all you’re flat “A” surfaces facing up on the printing bed and your hidden or least important surfaces facing down. But shapeways has to print as many parts in its printer's build envelope as possible at any one time to keep the printing prices affordable to the customer. So depending how your parts are orientated when printed, you might get lucky and your parts come out great where you want them to come out great or all you’re "A" surfaces are covered in crystal like material you have to manually remove. The Alternative is go to a more custom rapid prototyping job shop. But your $30 Shapeways model will cost more like $200 and doubling the parts won’t save you money, it will just double the cost… Plus I have yet to find another printing process that goes down to .1mm parting lines, .1mm details and down to .3mm wall thickness. Not even some of the really expensive very high surface quality SLA processes.

So after almost 20 years of finishing and painting CNC and SLA models, the best method I’ve found for cleaning up the tooling marks of CNC and step over marks for SLA is not to sand them out (you get a wavy surface when you sand) but to scrape them off with a rigged tool held almost perpendicular to the surface, scraping along the lines and not across. This seems to work very well for getting the crystal like material off your parts to (for larger more robust parts like my buckeye trucks, I lightly brush as much crystal like material off first with a “hard” bristle toothbrush before I scrape). I made my own tools by grinding down exacto-knive chisel blades (which I think only Revell makes now…)and they work quite well for this 1/220 scale stuff. I've attached a photo of the custom tools. By no means am I suggesting this is the best overall way to finish this or any type or rapid prototype model. As I said, it’s the best way I have found. So I’d love to hear any and all suggestions anyone else might have to get rid of step over marks besides sanding. I'd add Mr. Surfacer 1000 to this list but that almost deserves its own topic and some might find it a bit controversial to use....

The crystal like material left behind from the support material is really what gets me down. It takes a lot of time and effort to manually remove it when it’s in a highly detailed and visible area on your model. So if anybody has found or come up with a solution to this, I am all ears and open to try anything…

-Jon Pope

OK, if a 408x315 pixel jpeg image is still to big I'm not sure I can make it any smaller....