Best way to clean up supports on jewellery prints?

General Discussion
1

Hi guys,
I’m fairly new to 3d printing, and I’m struggling to understand how people can get a really clean final surface for casts when printing jewellery designs.
The prints require more supports than I anticipated (nobody’s fault really, but seeing images on Formlab’s site they looked like a straight print without needing supports, such as these images: https://formlabs.com/media/upload/Castable_sample_part.png & https://formlabs.com/media/upload/_thumbs/Castable_sharp_detail_mobile.png.1280x1024_q80_crop-smart.png so I’d assumed I could print that way. As I say, it was an assumption so I’m not blaming Formlabs).
So now I have to put more supports against what might be a detailed area or a rounded surface, I need to be very careful I don’t remove supports, sand bumps away and end up removing this detail or flattening a rounded area.

For delicate areas does anybody have any tips (tools & techniques) for really good clean up?

Thanks,
Gareth

1 Like
2

I’m not making castable jewelry but changing the spot size for supports in Preform seems to really help ease the cleanup.

Steve

1 Like
3

I use needle files (medium and fine) especially when trying to keep sharp angles, transitions, etc. The linked items are similar to what I bought locally, I cannot vouch for how good these are. I used medium grit files for cleaning off points general shaping, then the fine for final cleaning. Then use a soft bristle toothbrush in IPA bath to clean particles off surfaces. Can also use toothbrush/IPA combo to clean the files.

4

Any 3rd party software we can use to generate thin supports?