Garden Railway Forum

I recently purchased a kit that included numerous 3D printed parts. Unfortunately the quality of the prints is somewhat variable. Other than many coats of primer, does anyone have any tips on cleaning up the prints?

The print in grey had lots of loose filament which I've cut off, I was thinking of filling the void with some kind of sand-able filler?

Yuck!

I'd fill that big hole to start with! Then the rest I'd go at it with quite a big file, try and smooth off. Then halfords filler primer sanded back a few times should really help, I use it all the time.

First of all I'd say that the quality of all of those prints is awful, especially the big grey piece. I'd send it straight back for a refund/replacement.

However, if you want to persevere with it, I'd suggest filling it all over with Squadron White putty, which is intended for plastic modelling filling and adheres to the plastic and is sandable, fileable, drillable, glueable and paintable!

For rubbing down, use "Wet & Dry" and don't rub too hard. I'm assuming that the prints are PLA ( unless you know differently?) so if you rub too hard or with too coarse grade sandpaper/files it will heat up rapidly, soften the surface and drag.

Hi, I do lots of printing and I must agree these are terrible. I wouldn't be happy with them if I'd printed them for myself! Dare I ask who supplied the kit?

Ron

I too would like to know the kit manufacturer, that's really bad quality, even for a home printer.

As said, use wet and dry, but use it very wet, it takes away the build up of plastic, but don't go "too hard at it" as you can cause enough friction to melt spots on it.

Yatton Models. Can’t say I’m impressed with the laser cut parts either! Going to take a lot of filler and sanding across the whole model to get it looking tidy. I guess it gives me more to do which isn’t a bad thing in the current environment .