Acetone vapor molding experiment  

Acetone vapor molding experiment

Hi,

I made some experiment to use acetone vapor to mold ABS print Lots of try can be found on the web, but most of them are talking about heating the acetone, which I found way too dangerous, so I tried to make a protocol to have cold acetone vapor molding.

Everything is done outside to avoid inhaling acetone. Do not smoke while doing that 😉

So I used a IKEA box as a container. I checked and it's not affected by acetone, as well as the recipient used to contain the acetone.

So I put 2 cm of acetone in a recipient and used paper sheet, diping in the recipient to help evaporate, and long enough so that the cover can maintain it.

In my test I add an issue that acetone can condensate on the top, dripping and then ruining the result. So I added a paper sheet to protect against that.

Then I just put the cover on top on it. Adding some books on the top to compress the paper sheets help to have a betterairtightness.

The process is pretty long, several hours. Apparently, the ambiant temperature have a big influence. But the relative transparency of the box help to check the process from time to time. For now I used a paper sheet below the printed part, but I should use some kind of bed of reverse drawing pin to allow the below part to be molded as well.