MakerGear Forum

You guys might have already discovered this, but I recently tried the full-bed 3DXTech 4 mil thick Kapton sheets....love them, they are nice and thick, and easy to apply, but they were a little slick for PLA - I was still having to use a spritz of hairspray to keep the prints attached. I loathe the hairspray deal, it really messes with my sinuses, and if you get too much on the bed you've got to freeze the prints off. (Gluesticks are even worse for me, I can't ever get them applied evenly, and you've got to wait for them to dry.)

Long story short, I got the idea that using a Magic Eraser on the Kapton tape would provide some tooth for the plastic to grab onto, (micro-abrasion), so this afternoon when I washed the goop off, I scratched the dickens out of the tape, all over, with a damp melamine sponge. It's not enough to show on a print, it just makes the surface dull instead of shiny, but I was floored by how well the next couple of prints stuck to the bed! Not one iota of edge curl - and I've been fighting that battle on the large area prints since the get-go.

And when it was time to take the prints off the bed, I didn't have to pry up an edge, I didn't have to freeze, I just picked them up off the bed. They popped right off with no fight. (The print of the same cards that I'd made before the scratching had to be frozen AND pried off, and they were a real battle because they were thin and fragile, and covered a large surface area. Tough to get them off without breaking them.)

Haven't tried a tall print yet, but this worked really well today, so I thought I'd share in case someone else wanted to experiment with sticking on some of the other plastics. (I'm still just using PLA.) It might boost the sticking power of the tape to scuff it up a bit though for the other plastics.

Let me know how it works out if you try it.

Awesome! That will work nicely when you make some ABS goop out of the scraps I sent you

Yep! Can't wait to try that! (That reminds me, got to add a bottle of nail polish remover to the grocery list for next week.)

Jules wrote:Yep! Can't wait to try that! (That reminds me, got to add a bottle of nail polish remover to the grocery list for next week.)

Make sure it's just pure acetone. no lotions, no perfumes. Pour some out on aluminum foil, and burn it, make sure it leaves zero residue.

Just give glue stick on bare glass a good try. It is a single method that works for all filament types.

rsilvers wrote:Just give glue stick on bare glass a good try. It is a single method that works for all filament types.

We have a big thread on that already, namely about how large parts pull chips out of the glass, and Kapton holds stronger and will flex instead of the glass breaking.

Make sure it's just pure acetone. no lotions, no perfumes. Pour some out on aluminum foil, and burn it, make sure it leaves zero residue.

Just buying it for the bottle really - got a big ol' can of pure Acetone in the garage. It's not the most convenient thing to use. (I'll dump the nail polish remover, or use it to remove stickers.)

Just give glue stick on bare glass a good try. It is a single method that works for all filament types.

Unfortunately, I just had a taller print get knocked off the bare Kapton , so i did put just a touch of the glue stick on it. Second print is going much better. Ah well, it was worth a shot.

Got my sheets, trying them out now. Seems to work quite well for PLA. I did the scuffing with magic eraser thing, but since I didn't try it without that I can't say for sure whether it is the secret for success. I can't say that it made any visible difference to the surface, but PLA, at least, seems to like it very much. I can't say it's better than glue stick, but it sure is easier to get the prints off.

I gave up on Kapton after my first month of printing. Kapton works sometimes for ABS for flatter parts, but for more complex parts, one will want to add glue or ABS-juice to it. It doesn't work so well for PLA. It doesn't work at all for Nylon or PC. It is a dead-end, not to mention expensive. Glue stick on bare glass works for everything, including Nylon and PC, and in my mind, supersedes ABS juice.

rsilvers wrote:I gave up on Kapton after my first month of printing. Kapton works sometimes for ABS for flatter parts, but for more complex parts, one will want to add glue or ABS-juice to it. It doesn't work so well for PLA. It doesn't work at all for Nylon or PC. It is a dead-end, not to mention expensive. Glue stick on bare glass works for everything, including Nylon and PC, and in my mind, supersedes ABS juice.

Glue stick on bare glass doesn't work for me and ABS. I used Elmers purple, and the part warped straight up with a brim of dried glue crust stuck to it.