Painting

3D Printing Post-processing
#1

What spray paint have you found to be the best for painting a model?

I was running a quick test and used some Krylon safety orange paint. It did not stick to the surface. I know sanding the surface would have helped, but there is a small channel in the part that needs to be painted and I can’t get sandpaper in there very well. It is hard to describe the part, but basically it is a guttersnipe sight for laser tag taggers. I have to paint the inside of the sight channel while leaving the corners of the channel the original color. My theory is that if I run a string inside the channel at the bottom corners, I can paint the channel then remove the string to leave the two black lines at the bottom. My test looked like it would work, but the paint acted watery (not sure if that is a word), and did not stick to the plastic. May have been old paint.

I know there was a thread that had some discussion of paints for the dragons, but I can’t find it.

I will either need to print the parts in white, then paint the whole thing black, then paint the channel, or print in black then paint the channel. Printing in black is less work, but I don’t know how bright the paint would be painting over the black, and it needs to be very visible.

#2

The only brand which I know is “Vallejo” they are the best for models painting.

http://zortrax.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=23 - here is some other thread but instead of spray there was used normal paint

Best Regards

#3

Tamiya paint is very good.

#4

Yeah, paint made for plastic models should work well. It may help to use some kind of cleaner on the plastic first.

#5

Yeah, I was in a hardware store looking around and wasn’t even thinking about model paint. I will get to a hobby store tomorrow to get some to try. Thanks

#7

[quote name=dgtaylor45]What spray paint have you found to be the best for painting a model?

I was running a quick test and used some Krylon safety orange paint. It did not stick to the surface. I know sanding the surface would have helped, but there is a small channel in the part that needs to be painted and I can’t get sandpaper in there very well. It is hard to describe the part, but basically it is a guttersnipe sight for laser tag taggers. I have to paint the inside of the sight channel while leaving the corners of the channel the original color. My theory is that if I run a string inside the channel at the bottom corners, I can paint the channel then remove the string to leave the two black lines at the bottom. My test looked like it would work, but the paint acted watery (not sure if that is a word), and did not stick to the plastic. May have been old paint.

I know there was a thread that had some discussion of paints for the dragons, but I can’t find it.

I will either need to print the parts in white, then paint the whole thing black, then paint the channel, or print in black then paint the channel. Printing in black is less work, but I don’t know how bright the paint would be painting over the black, and it needs to be very visible.
[/quote]
Krylon Fusion works really good so far. It is meant for plastic. Black looks great. Going to try red next. I’ll post pics soon.

#8

I bought the cheapest spray paint I could find ( brandless, 2 euro for a can) and the adhesion is perfect. Tried to scratch it off with my fingernail and did not even scratch. Most times I prefer decent groundwork (building the correct layers like Rafal describes), but this just shows one can be lucky and do it the lazy way : ) .

I have applied the paint to some handlebars, see how it lasts over time…