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.