In our lab we want to print an aorta (big blood vessel) with an aneurysm inside. Our model is to long (z-axis) for the build size. We use the Form3 with an Elastic resin. Our idea is to print this in 2 parts and glue the parts together.
Does anybody have experience with this? Is this possible? What should we pay attention to? And do you need special glue? Or are there other ideas to make this possible?
I don’t have any experience with the elastic resin but you’ll probably find cyanoacrylate will bond the parts together, however it might not be very flexible. Alternatively you could try using some of the elastic resin as a UV curable adhesive, curing with a 405nm lamp or laser pointer. You’ll find other threads on bonding parts together if you search the forums here.
This works well for me with black. Both spot repairs on support marks, and gluing parts together.
I bought a pack of 1ml syringes and skinny blunt needles from Amazon, and a focusable LED torch for curing. Usually cures in only a couple of seconds.
You might get away with even the next smallest size of needles, but those will give you pretty tiny drops. There are bound to be better torches than that one, but I couldn’t find anything that shipped to New Zealand at the time.
I would try the suggestions here about using the resin itself first. If that really isn’t working for you, third party adhesives could be the answer, but we haven’t done extensive testing on how those will react with the cured material.
I also have a pair of glasses that filter 405 nm light. If you do a lot
of repair/glue this way, you want to protect your eyes.
Good point, another thing I bought from Amazon actually: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07DCRR8NG/
The downside is they work well enough that I often have trouble seeing exactly where I’m pointing the UV light.
I have tried cyanoacrylate, however it is not working (stick fast to) with the elastic resin.
Hello together, In our lab we want to print an aorta too and have now the same challenge. Have you meanwhile found a working solution to glue the parts together?
Use a drop of resin spread over one of the surfaces to be mated. Hold them together and go stand in the sunlight for a few minutes. Or get a small 405nm UV/blue laser and have an assistant shoot the seam with the beam while you hold the parts together.
There are types of Cyanoacrylate that cure flexible. But most of the stuff cures hard and those bonds won’t survive when the seam is flexed. The CA will crumble and break away. If you want some flexible CA, go look for radio control car tire glue, which is used to bond a rubber tire to a plastic wheel hub.
If you can’t get the resin method to work, you could try some 5 minute epoxy. It won’t be flexible when cured, but it will probably hold on to the cured resin better than CA.
My experience with Loctite 406 is excellent. It is a cyanoacrylate specially developed to glue rubbers against each other (for making o-rings from continuous rubber). Make sure surfaces to be bonded are degreased, and apply the minimum amount of CA possible (soaking it decelerates the curing since it needs absence of oxygen -and a degree of moisture- to cure), and press firmly 20 seconds.
If it fails it might be the substrate adjacent to the bond is failing…
Hi hoolito, did you try the Loctite 406 adhesive with elastic resin 50 A oder elastic resin 80A? I ask this question, because i think they differ in their composition. Best regards