Vapor Smoothing Baseplate

Vapor Smoothing Plate

A Baseplate for Vapor Smoothing. It stops your prints from adhering to the underlying surface.

In a usual scenario, the print being smoothed may have solvent condense or drip onto the underside, gluing the print to the working surface (probably a table, workbench, or the bottom of a PP container). Resting the print on this bumpy surface lifts the print, minimizes contact area, and helps prevent self-gluing of the printed model. Useful for filaments such as ABS, ASA, and PVB.

Have fun and be sure to handle strong solvents responsibly. 


Printing Notes

You may find the cones density too low for smoothing miniatures at the default scale, the model may fall between them. A simple solution is to scale the plate down along X/Y in your slicer, to something like 80mm x 80mm x 5mm. Print one plate for large models and another for minis. 

PLA works fine for PVB smoothing. If you use it for acetone smoothing be sure to lift it away from the bottom of the container so the heat won't warp the PLA. Or just anneal it ahead of time.

Misc

The cat show in the picture is Pōpoki: the Good Luck Tiki Cat by @Loubie3D