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Posts Tagged ‘spray painting 3d models’
Spray Painting Your 3D Printed Models
11, Sep 2014
3D printer filaments do come in many different colors, but sometimes you may not have the right color you need to print directly using it and instead can just spray paint your printed object that is using different color filament. We are using spray paints designed for painting lexan bodies for radio controlled models (RC cars) as they work pretty well, providing good paint coverage, sticking well and remain on the painted object even when you are flexing it (something that may be a problem if using auto paint sprays). You can of course try with different types of paint, using acrylic paint with a brush or an airbrush may also provide good results, especially if you want to paint details in different colors and not the whole object in a single color. On the photo above you can see a sample 3D printed object using transparent PLA filament for printing along with a spray can of black RC car color paint.
Here is the result of doing just two layers of coating of the transparent 3D printed object with the black paint – it is no longer transparent and the paint has very good coverage. The finer detail of the object is preserved, but if you add more layers of paint on top you could see that some of the finer detail may not be visible anymore, so you should be careful. The resulting paint creates a matte color finish, so we have a matte black, but if you want to have a glossy effect you can add on top of the paint a layer or two using a clear coating spray. Just be careful as there are two types of clear coating sprays available – one is resulting in a glossy coating and the other is for matte coating, and since the paint you use will most likely already have a matte effect covering it further with clear matte spray may just add some extra protection.