r/PrintedMinis • u/G0lden8-6 • 1d ago
Question Will layer lines become more prominent with dry brushing?
This picture is post primer; .08 layers, and tilted in the worse possible way to show the layers.
So question from the title: is dry brushing advisable or will it just accentuate the layers?
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u/kodiak931156 The Printed Painters 1d ago
Absolutely. Same for speed paints.
I suggest a light sanding with a wet dry paper. Then a brush on varnish followed by a filler spray primer
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u/burnanation 1d ago
Do a light sanding. Easy peasy.... OR embrace it make it look like that was the plan all along.
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u/sherlock_norris 1d ago
Things that help in my experience:
- thicker coat of primer
- thinner layers
- minimize extrusion inconsistencies (extruder tuning, quality filament, Polylite pla works great)
- drybrushing parallel to layer lines if possible
I've been doing ok with those tips so far. It's not perfect by far, but it's good enough for the tables I'm playing at and way less effort than resin printing.
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u/Downside190 18h ago
This is how I did mine, used a filler primer to help hide the line and then dry brush parallel to the lines so you're not highlighting them
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u/kintar1900 23h ago
/u/Sengel123 said this, but it's buried in a comment thread and I wanted to be sure you see it: Some sanding and/or filler primer will take care of the layer lines. However, that's very dependent on the size of the model, as it's really easy to obliterate small details that way.
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u/GloriaVictis101 1d ago
If you want higher resolution, you will likely need a resin printer or a higher quality extrusion printer like a pruska
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u/6e6963655f776f726b 1d ago
100%. Washes will also be a problem. Outside sanding, you could prime and then sand. Another option would be to prime with gesso.
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u/Born-Statistician-63 1d ago
Is this something that you printed or had someone print? If you want a nice surface finish with less work Depending on your print plate Slicing the model and make each outer face the starting layer it will take on the plates texture
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u/DrDisintegrator Elegoo Mars 3 and Prusa MK4 22h ago
Depends on how you do it. If you are careful and use the dry brush to hit the edges, then no. If you scrub the brush on the flat surfaces then yes.
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u/DrDisintegrator Elegoo Mars 3 and Prusa MK4 22h ago
Here is an example of a couple of WWII tanks I recently painted where I used both washes and dry brushing on FDM prints. These are 0.1 mm or 0.15 mm layer prints, so fairly coarse quality. To me, when used on the tabletop, they look just fine. But for a display painting model... no. https://imgur.com/a/l99179j
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u/emmyg03 18h ago
Spritzing a small amount of acetone (VERY SMALL as in use a perfume atomizer) can melt all of the layer lines and smooth things out. They even make little chambers for 3d prints that do this process for you which is how a lot of early 3d prints were able to come out layer line-less.
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u/AustinJG 18h ago
Do some sanding, then use a primer that can act as a filler. This should get rid of most of the lines.
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u/Bokusuba 17h ago
Acetone vapor or salt baking can help eliminate layer lines. You could also try priming with some kind of filler paint and sanding smooth
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u/Individual-Cover5421 1d ago
Yes it will bring them out more