How to finish/fill a print

3D Printing Materials
1

Hi, Some of my prints have completed mostly O.K apart from the top layer. I know this is probably due to printing the PLA to fast, not having a cooling fan (yet) and also not enough top layers. However, what would people recommend to use to smooth out and fill in the small holes in the print? I am in the UK and some of the products I have read about cost a fortune to ship to the UK like XTC-3D.

I was wondering if something like bumper repair from Halfords would be O.K or would this be to thick to use on small prints etc?

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I was looking for more of a paste I can put on and then sand down to fill the gaps? Has anyone got any recommendations?

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3

Car body filler or bumper filler will work well. PLA can be solvent welded (and thus smoothed) with chloroform. Sanding and smoothing is also good.

so yeah, car body filler all over it, smooth out, dry and sand.

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4

You may use putty, very used by modelists.

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5

Can you post a picture of your issue? Many times holes in the top layer are due to under extrusion. That is, the plastic is not extruding fast enough and leave thin strands that eventually break over gaps. You can try setting your extrusion multiplier to a lower number (more plastic).

Or if you just want to fix the holes, I use Bondo glazing and spot putty. Works great and sets fast for sanding.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0002JM8PY/ref=oh\_aui\_detailpage\_o02\_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

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Hey, Chloroform works well with PLA? Similar to acetone with ABS?

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Yeah, as far as I know. I haven’t actually tested it personally because well… Can you imagine even trying to get a hold of chloroform??

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Haha, fair enough! Thanks for the tip.

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Thanks for the input. I think the problem I had was I didn;t have a cooling fan and when trying to fill in over the infill the plastic just gapped in places. Also the fact I only had 3 top layers at the time. However I tried to just paint it and so far it has filled in the small gaps that were there.

However it’s good to know that Bumper filler should work and is far cheaper than some other items that have been suggested to me in the past. Also I imagine it would be easier to get hold of that Chloroform.