3DPrinting
3DPrinting is a place where makers of all skill levels and walks of life can learn about and discuss 3D printing and development of 3D printed parts and devices.
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What did you use to stain it? It's possible you applied it too thick and it isn't going to ever dry. If you clearcoat over tacky stain, you're just going to create a bigger mess. You can let it sit longer and sand if off, or use a solvent and try to remove the excess. But the more you mess with it, the more of a mess it is going to be.
Might need to make some smaller test prints and experiment with finishing.
What type of stain did you use? I imagine it makes a difference considering the part is plastic.
Just regular Minwax, I've seen some reccomend gel stain
I found this Reddit post after a Google search.
I think you went too much on the stain from the get go. I'm finding I have to be patient between coats on all my PLA prints.
Yeah, probably needs much thinner coat than what I'm used to using on real wood. The velocity painting idea is neat. Might need to try that sometime. I am using image to stl conversion on this profect to create a shallow negative volume that after staining looks very much like a woodburner etching. I almost wonder if I could apply a wood grain to the print itself by having just a 0.10mm offset of a wood grain stl applied to the surface.
How long did you leave the stain on before wiping it?
8min
I think that might be your issue. Gel stain from minwax should be wiped off after 3 minutes. Anything longer can cause the issue you are experiencing. I would try to wipe/sand off the finish and start again. On a side note, we need to do that to our banister/railing in this house. The previous owner of the house apparently liked the THICK look of the gel stain.
For what it's worth, I'm not using gel, just standard Minwax stain
Oh dang, I misread another comment you made. With regular stain the longer you leave on usually the darker it just makes it appear. But as long as you fully wiped off the excess after it should have worked out. That said I've only used stain on actual wood. Haven't tried printing wood PLA yet.
I’ve worked with a lot of Wood PLA (almost exclusively Amolen). It stains fine, but I always apply a very small amount to a fine bristle brush and use that to apply it to the parts. I don’t use much, and then I let it air dry in a room that’s at least 70° overnight before doing anything else with it.
I don’t know that I’d ever sand blast. I’ve manually sanded (which has allowed me to better fake “grain” before applying stain.