Casting SolusCast

[Devlin]

Okay,

Probably not the best test, looking for better ideas. Please share if you have one.

So with the resin invested in the flask you are more likely to have even more ash?
What do you think is a good test, cutting a flask open after burnout or just keep wasting metal on bad castings.

it would seem the SolusCast is not as easy to cast as advertised. The prints are coming out great,I just tried 10 micron, very nice. casting are not. The extra curing time sure kills the faster print times. Not that 10 micron was fast, over 5 hours to print.

Currently trying a 12 hour cure time in a nail curing box after 20 min fast cure. I will see how that goes.

[rsaldivar]

at this time , the only issue is curing time , the resin print quality is right on , the grow time is right on , for me , its just the long curing , I can get perfect castings if I want ,its just that Im using this time to see how to cure without so long a wait , these are mostly brass so no waist of costly precious metals which is why Im using this for my testing , but yes , testing is required for speeds sake , I can show great casting results , but what would that matter if I had to cure or age it for a long period of time , the whole thing is to do it in a timely matter , hence , the testing
people with production of the same model repeatably will or shouldn't have any problems , Its the one offs that are a concern , so I would ask you all for help in curing methods , maybe someone know whats in this stuff and how to mimic the aging process

IDK , maybe heating it in water at 120 f for a couple of hours , but after curing with UV first ?? I say fisrt because I found that when I heart treat it first , the model gets cracks , but not the other way around
Tyler sells a cure gel ?
microwaving it ?
I was also thinking a dehydrator ?
IDK ?

[rkundla]

The one thing Binion's paper for the Santa Fe Symposium mentioned was that heat treatment resulted in greater dimensional loss of the model than UV.

The gentle heat helps cure the internals as long as it stays consistent. The factor that is unknown is if a dry cure will cause cracking more so than a wet cure? (in water, baby oil, etc.)

Time for more experiments...

[rsaldivar]

I think that the UV only curs the surface plus a little more , I think that deeper into the model remains uncured and thats why aging (Time) finishes the job , somehow drys the resin threw and threw , if anyone has a old dehydrator that still works , can you try and experiment with it , I would rec 1 or 2 hours UV first and then 1 or 2 hours in the dehydrator , or and , also the other way around , there is an opinion that UV last because this way the model isn't locked up by UV first and the aging ( or dehydrating )will run smoother and easily to penetrate to the core before you UV , again IDK

any info. or research on annealing plastic (or resin) would be helpful too
the last time I had time , I was looking at the cure units that the dentist use and was trying to find out the wattage of UV bulbs , I figure that those guys need to UV very thick models , being that a tooth is thicker than a ring

and the last thing I was thinking about was to try a heat lamp simultaneously with my 2 UV lamps for a couple of hours , but dont know id the heat lamp will weaken or cancel out the UV lamps

[Archerm]

I also think some colors allow more uv light to penetrate deeper and faster.

[Jewelermdt]

I believe your bad area was do to the metal having to flow up into that area. It's first going to go in and down then have to backtrack to fill. This can cause air/gas to get trapped so the metal will not fill the void. You need to put in some vents to allow air/gas to escape.

[Devlin]

Cast today, same design one soluscast resin model one emerald resin model. Side by side.

After 30 min fast cure under water i also did a 12 hour slow cure in a finger nail cure unit not under water. This extra time was for SolusCast only the emerald has been fine with 10 min fast cure.

This design is a lighter more filigree style,highly detailed, no images as it is a new design i do not wish to post.
Cast in 14k White, both came out perfect. No rough surface areas either, all smooth. The soluscast was a 10 micron and the emerald was 20 micron.

Both look very good. Perhaps a bit more sharpness and the Soluscast. Does not to seem to have any grow lines. I will find out in the finishing process.

I use plasticast.

As mentioned by others cure the hell out of it.

I still think it does not hurt to put some old defective resin models in the kiln during burnout, if nothing else it gives you a visual of what you are dealing with. And take a look around 700 800 F
what a bubbly nasty blob of goo. Just do not breath the fumes.

That is all I have to say.

[wawatobi]

My first attempts at casting Soluscast were a complete failure but the latest result was very good. The tree in the attachment is sterlium as cast. The Halo ring model was soluscast, the other two were Emerald. The only flaws in the soluscast ring were a couple of extremely tiny pits on the sides of the halo. These will be easily repaired with my welder. I can say that the pits were caused by ash. There was no sign of investment breakdown. You can see in the side view of the Halo ring that the claws all came out fine. I exposed the models to 20 watt ultra violet lamp for twelve hours and a nail curer for around the same time and cooked the models in a counter top oven at 150 F for four hours after the ultra violet. My burn out....

-two hours in toaster oven at 275 F to eliminate wax.
-1 hour 350F
-1 hour 700F
-1 hour 1200F
-3 hours 1375 F
- ramp down to casting temp.
ramps are 1000 degrees per hour.

[wawatobi]

I should have mentioned in the post above.... My investment was Plasticast and I added .7 percent boric acid to the weight of the water. I will probably try 1 percent next time. I've had trouble with the investment cracking when using boric acid.

[M-Williams]

After reading most of the thread with our in house caster . we assume they are three suggestions we think can improve you casting using solucast or any other resin.

1) A powerful "LED" UV light source

2) water ration 36 to 100 plasticast

3) you must vacuum your investment . It becomes viscous and solid rock .

solucast prints awesome, and it is fairly an easy resin to cast, compare to resins we tried since we start printing.

I'm not here to challenge anyone's experience or way to do business, nor to sell you the solucast. Im not even going to upload pictures to prove my case. Though anyone with a basic casting experience would know the value of those steps.

just my two cents. Marc.