Has anyone had success with the Clear Cast resin and shell castings?
I’m going on my 3rd tank of Clear Cast resin and have had quite poor results with blow outs and porosity casting in bronze. Now, I understand that this is a trial-and-error thing, but the kicker is, I had gone down a nearly 2-year process of experimenting with clear v4 and ended with some truly incredible results with no issues at all. I had only learned of the new Clear cast resin when I was going to purchase more normal clear.
For my previously successful castings I had used the free Meshmixer to hollow and lattice. My results were all successful with wall weights of .5 to .6mm, lattice diameters of .5 to .6, and spacing of 4 to 5 mm. One parameter that I took into consideration is percentage of volume between pre and post hollowed and latticed designs. Anywhere under 30% I had great results.
I was naturally excited to see the new resin release and figured if I had such great results with clear v4, it would be no issue switching. Went with .5 wall weight, .5 diameter and 3mm spacing. So really the only change was the spacing, however my percentages were all under 30% so figured it wouldn’t be an issue.
With the poor quality of these last castings, I’m a bit stumped. The designs were nearly identical, panels with different logos and designs in them. It was one large batch, and I’m not completely ruling out issues with the metal pour as its possible and they put the gates on a bit different than in the past. It was still surprising after so many successful castings previously with Clear V4.
Some things I’ve noted and are questioning
With the clear 4, after curing it was super crispy and yellow. I really tried to extra cure them based on a comment I had seen on here a while back. I did have some issues with warping at the recommended 60c temperature though, so when I read in the white paper for Clear Cast that the suggested temp was 35C with the option of a post curing schedule with no heat too, I decided to go this route to avoid warping. I tried a few different things, but ultimately, they all got at least an hour of time in the cure. Not sure if this could be causing issues.
Most of my previous castings I used wax to plug the drain holes but switched to resin to create a cleaner look. Another possible issue with expansion and casting?
I’ve compared the TDS and between clear cast and clear V4 and they are Identical with exception for the V4 not having thermal expansion or ash content information, to which I would love to know just for curiosity’s sake.
I’m printing a few more pieces with my leftover V4 as well as more in Clear Cast in hopes that they all turn out and this run was a fluke, but figured I’d post just to see if anyone had any info to add to the conversation!