True transparency in a Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) print is an aspiration that opens the door to a huge range of prototyping, desktop factory, and professional production possibilities. Taulman, renowned for their high quality filaments for FDM 3D printers, have blogged that a new epoxy coating is showing some startlingly good transparency results with their T-glase feedstock. Smooth-On released their XTC-3D product for coating 3D printed parts a few weeks ago, and, since then, Taulman have been putting the coating to the test, with some excellent results for their clear and coloured t-glase.
T-glase, a polyethylene terephthalate (PET, commonly known as polyester) filament, has had a considerably favorable feedback reaction from the 3D printing community. PET in its natural state is a colourless resin. Taulman have lept at the opportunity to further increase the finish quality to augment the transparency material property of their product. Further to conducting tests with a selection of T-glase colours the results have impressed the company enough to publish a recommendation for XTC-3D. From the images that they have shown, it’s easy to see why:
Taulman explain on their blog that: ”…XTC-3D dries to a hard and durable enamel type surface. The number of coatings required was usually two, a heavier coating may work, but [is] more difficult to manage. The red cup shows where a section has one coating and the lower section, two coatings. While the material is an off-white when mixed, it does brush on rather clear. Again, the more brushed on layers, the more cloudy the surface becomes, but still acceptable.”
Taulman conclude: ”Most important to us was the lack of bubbles found in almost all other two-part epoxies we tried… This works on t-glase as t-glase is very chemical resistant to the base chemicals in XTC-3D. We tried this on clear PLA and clear ABS with very cloudy results. The chemical base to XTC may be designed to fuse with ABS to increase overall strength or appearance.”
Given the visibly more transparent results further to the post-printing process, the combination of Taulman t-glase and Smooth-On XTC-3D may well go on to prove popular in the desktop 3D printing community. Indeed, the speed of application and quality of output result may well make this combination a notable addition to more individuals and companies that are creating professional level 3D prints for prototyping and production. We’d love to hear of your own experiences with this combination, and other applications of XTC-3D and similar products too — feel free to drop us an email or add to the comments section below!
