3D printed minis dissolving

[wolfie65Participant 1238xp 0]

So I took a look at some 3D prints I bought about a year ago, and to my horror, a few small parts of a diorama set were actually in the process of liquefying – turning back into the smelly toxic sludge that spawned them.

Anyone ever have that happen ?

[sundancer 42985xp 0]

that sounds concerning oO

[blinky465 17028xp 1]

In a word – yes. It sounds like “resin traps”. Are they particularly large pieces? What can happen is if there’s a “pocket” inside a mini, you can end up with uncured resin, surrounded by a solid shell (imagine, let’s say, a character with a really big head, and the wall thickness had been set to, say, 1mm – although the entire outer of his head is solid, there might be a big empty void inside).

Anywhere where you get uncured resin trapped inside cured resin, eventually it leaks out. It can take months. My first experience of it was when I printed a large settee and forgot to add drain holes; I made the object hollow, thinking I’d save on resin – but then forgot to add drain holes to let the uncured resin out of the void I made! The end result?
Well, I still used up loads of resin (because it got trapped inside) and after about four month, the model turned “sweaty” then a bit sticky, then after a few weeks, it stuck itself to my shelf as the resin oozed out.

In short, it sounds like you had trapped uncured resin inside the objects.

[sundancer 42985xp 0]

In that case would the seller be liable? If you just buy a printed piece and it starts to leak and become useless or even damages your furniture?

[wolfie65Participant 1238xp 1]

The pieces involved are furniture and accessories for a Wizard’s tower diorama set, so not particularly big, about the size of an infantry trooper. I have taken them out of their plastic wrappers and placed them on a paper towel inside a little plastic bucket, so they can ‘drain’ or dry without damaging anything else. I will try to dig the seller out of my Fleabay archive and ask them about this. I am wondering if priming them would stop the rot or if it would be similar to those 54mm Mexican soldiers you get in the Americana Alamo set. No matter how thickly you prime them or with what, the indigo blue they are made of ALWAYS leaks through, even through automotive spray primer.

I’ve always been very suspicious of 3D prints, they are SUPERFRAGILE – even more so than resin, which is also kind of a nightmare – and while the ultra-deep undercuts the procedure allows look cool, they make some of the figures extremely hard to paint.

I am very careful with my figures, and 3D printed rabbit assassin broke 3 times in 2 different places just while cleaning and painting…..

My preferred material will always be metal ,followed by hard plastic, then soft plastic  – such as Airfix, toy soldiers, etc. I buy resin figures only in very limited numbers and then only if there is NO other option – Demented Games, for example, offer most of theirs  in either metal or resin – and I will be very, very reluctant to ever buy 3D again.

Sometimes, change is not good and ‘progress’ creates more problems than it solves.

[blinky465 17028xp 1]

Priming won’t save them, I’m afraid. Well, it didn’t mine, anyway!

You’re quite right that some 3d prints can be very fragile. The first prints I made using the Anycubic resin that came with my printer were super-brittle; like they were made of glass! Fingers and noses would snap off just from looking at them.

These days I use eco-resin (the plant-based not-so-smelly stuff) or abs-like (for a much more forgiving model).
I can even drop my minis on the floor now and they don’t shatter into tiny little pieces any more!

Unfortunately, because of the super-high detail possible with a 3d printer (like a 4k mono screen for example) lots of sculptors don’t understand even the basics of producing nice miniatures – many don’t even  test-print their own models, and many simply make their minis far too complex and forget that we’re working at 28/32mm scale.

Guys like Artisan Guild and CyberForge make great minis for 3d printing. But that’s not to say there aren’t many more producing terrible minis (even if the renders look cool).

I guess our own experiences with different materials lead us to all have different preferences. I will never again buy or paint a metal miniature. Likewise, the soft rubbery plastic from Mantic or Reaper Bones. Hard plastic? GW are great at hiding their seams and mould lines, if I really must, I’d consider a GW hard plastic box set. But for me, 3d printed is top of the pops every time! (though maybe that’s because I’ve gone through many of the issues that come from 3d printing, and know what to look out for).

[wolfie65Participant 1238xp 0]

Update: Exposing them to the fairly cold air of my storage room seems to have stopped or at least slowed the process, I will attempt to prime them and see what happens. So far no issues with any of the other 3D minis I got in the same batch.

The seller has not responded to my inquiry.

[onlyonepinman 18062xp 0]

most likely this is what Blinky said.  It’s a model that’s been hollowed out and the liquid resin inside is now leaking through.  I think the only thing that you can do is keep them away from sunlight and clean them regularly, ideally with Iso Propyl Alcohol (surgical spirit) and a soft toothbrush.  Eventually (in theory) it will stop leaking on its own because there’s only a finite amount of liquid resin inside.  However what you don’t want is for the leaking resin to set – which it will in sunlight – and clog the details.  I can’t guarantee that you can salvage the models unfortunately, but there is a chance that they’re not totally beyond redemption but you do need to act quickly.

The cold air might seem like it has stopped it but that could just be because the resin will naturally start to thicken at lower temperatures.  If this ends up being totally unsalvageable, as a random act of kindness to a fellow gamer, I have lots of furniture STLs on my PC, if you tell me what you need I shall 3D print you some replacements and mail them to you all Free Of Charge.

[wolfie65Participant 1238xp 0]

Thanks for the generous offer !

The dissolution seems to have stopped or slowed considerably, I will move them to a more normal temperature and try a little alcohol to see what happens. So far, no external detail seems to have been lost, I’ll post some pictures if I can get my digicam to cooperate.

[blinky465 17028xp 1]

I wouldn’t prime until you’re sure the resin has stopped leaking. My…. erm….. friend tried this and it made a right horrible mess of my…. erm, his display shelf.

You could try drilling a few holes in inconspicuous places to encourage the uncured resin to leak out in a more controlled manner? In my case, I printed a sofa in translucent resin – I could see the uncured stuff sloshing around inside but didn’t realise it was a problem until I painted it (with super-heavy layers of primer to get it to stick to the sticky, sweaty resin-y surface) and the back cracked open and it leaked everywhere. At the time, I had a couple of other furniture items, similarly filled with resin, so drilled holes in the bottom and they “dried out” after a week or so.

Well, not my case, of course. My friends…..

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