I recently purchased some castable wax resin. Started firing off prints because I have limited access to the printer and intended to cast later.
Started noticing the finished prints sweating after a few days. After contacting formlabs and confirming there was no post curing (only the alcohol bath to remove excess liquid resin) they informed me that the wax is sweating out of the print, and that prints should be cast within a few days of printing. Am now worried that I have 20-30 prints that may be uncastable by the time i can get access to a metal shop.
Anyone had the same issue with the sweating or have cast prints that were finished week/months before burnout?
This might be related to temperatures- its high summer- are you storing them in a cool room?
Moreover- if wax is coming out- they might be changing dimension or warping… have you seen that?
If they are not changing in size or shape, then the wax may be simply leaving voids behind- and the resin as a scaffold… which should still be burnable and might actually do a better job because the primary issue is that in burnout the print EXPANDS before it starts to run out and that often cracks the investment or ceramic shell.
The purpose of the wax is that the wax WILL melt and run ( and burn at a lower temperature ) and allow the resin to heat without too much expansion…
So check the prints- if they are shrinking… you might have issues with burnout.
If not, they might work fine.
Yeah, the temperature idea seems to makes sense to me, it had crossed my mind to try putting them in a container in the fridge. But, I live in a basement apartment in Canada so the hottest it probably gets is 28 Celsius on a bad day and there’s a/c on when I’m home, so I have some doubts.
So far no noticeable warping or shrinking, I guess I’ll have to wait an see. Thank for the reply, I appreciate it.
Nice, good to hear that elapsed time from printing doesn’t affect the final product. Hopefully the sweating won’t either. Maybe I’ll try sticking one of my prints in a container in the fridge tonight to see if it stops the sweating.
I just spoke to our main jewelry expert, and he said that while the sweating can certainly happen in warmer environments, the part should(in most cases) still be usable after that with a quick wash with no ill effects on the final product.
He also said if a part is going to hang around for a while before being burned out, putting it in a ziploc bag in a cool place can really help with longevity.
Thanks a lot for looking into that, I really appreciate it .
I put a few parts in a container in my fridge and it did seem to stop the sweating, but as you mentioned it doesn’t seem to have an effect on the shape/stability of any of my prints, so hopefully they’ll burnout with no problems.
I’m going to clean and remove supports from some of them this weekend and get them cast next week. I’ll update this thread with the results.
UPDATE: I finally got a chance to have one of my prints cast in sterling silver. It was a small delicate piece and one of the first I printed, so it was subject to a lot of sweating. Happy to say that it came out perfectly.
