I’m looking for some advice on how to bond a post-processed resin printed piece to a large PLA print. I assume my options are either superglue or maybe brushing resin onto the PLA, attaching the resin print, and hitting it with a UV light?
Is there a better way? Thanks!
Make sure to rough up the resin surface to be glued then use CA glue and send it. I’m sure it will be sufficient.
Y, just use a little file and gently rub it over the two places you’re going to be connecting. Then use some E6000 and a clamp. I can’t remember why this is, but I do know that glue tends to stick best when spaced out. Perhaps the roughing up of the area permits for micro-gaps which allow for the two to better stick? Or that smooth faces in general do not stick well to one another. But I do know whenever gluing plastic I just grab a little metal file and always rub it over whatever part I will be hiding with glue.
Perhaps the roughing up of the area permits for micro-gaps which allow for the two to better stick?
I think it is more to do with increased surface area - more molecules of the glue are in contact with the part.
Seems so strange in my head, that you’re removing body yet the surface area is increased? But I actually truly don’t know the science (and actually did not look it up because it’s pretty irrelevant to me). But I do like to look stuff up. I think I just fell down the pie-hole and didn’t take the time. Maybe it’s like a razor, where as you sharpen it and the surface area changes the quality of the shave?
Eh, now I really do have to look into it. Cause clearly you’re saying what it is - I just gotta figure out how you subtract material and it increases surface area. To the internet~
Tada:
Plastic Bonding 101
“It takes the surface from a flat surface to a rough surface. So what was previously flat, now has peaks and troughs. In most cases, an increased available bonding area leads to a stronger joint.”
Rough up both surfaces.
Alternatively, if you want a removable bind, barges. It can be neater (barges is weird. You paint it on both parts after a few minutes, it’ll be not-tacky, but’ll bond to other barges. You can remove it with the application of gentle heat. It’s also flexible.)
Finally VHB tape from 3m is wonderful,
I usually use ca glue or a soldering iron to fuse or repair parts. That said, if you have good ventilation and ppe I know acetone welding is not uncommon for abs and I’ve come across an older post where that works with PLA. Not sure if it’ll work with your resin, could always try with a test piece.
OP wants to connect a Resin print to a PLA print, not two Filament-printed models together!
I understand that, acetone attacks a lot of plastics, I’ve seen mixed comments about it with resin prints for smoothing, I don’t see the harm with trying it on scrap material, at worst it doesn’t work.
CA glue though should work, heat won’t so that’s my bad. Op’s original idea of brushing on resin and curing it sounded possible to me.
There’s also mechanical solutions, if possible op could change their parts to accept a screw, into plastic is plenty strong. or they could build in some sort of snap fit solution but both of those would require design changes and I assume op already has their parts printed.
The problem with brushing on resin is actually not that great because resin for printers will need to be cured. Unless that material is letting the UV light through, only the outer parts will get cured and hold onto the models but when you open it up again the whole middle part would be liquid resin again which stinks and is toxic.
I had this misunderstanding for quite a while myself and though that I can just weld resin party with resin together until I did that with a larger piece and it broke quite easily and seeing that the whole inside wasn’t even touched at all by the UV light.
Hence also why you should shine some UV light into a hollowed model to fully cure it.
CA/superglue should do fine if applied correctly.
You could use just a regular 5 min epoxy. I frequently use CA glue, but depending on your use case, it might be too brittle.
Brittleness might be a concern, it will be for a costume piece
Thank you!
And if you don’t have easy access to 5 min epoxy, you could go with the super glue + baking soda trick for a similarly strong and hard bond: https://gluetips.com/super-glue-and-baking-soda/
