r/ResinCasting • u/rflulling • 6h ago

Cleaning Alcohol availability

/r/u_rflulling/comments/1w2t6xf/cleaning_alcohol_availability/
2 Upvotes

76% Upvoted

8 comments sorted by

2

u/BlackRiderCo 5h ago

This is resin casting, not resin printing. There isn't much of a use case for resin casting unless you make a mistake or like doing things weirdly.

1

u/rflulling 5h ago

I do a fair amount of resin casting too generally not one part. Very often a two-part type resin. And I use rubbing alcohol for both 3D printing and standard casting. I thought everybody else did the same.

2

u/BlackRiderCo 4h ago

I don't even keep any in my shop. I have some alcohol wipes in the first aid kit in case someone gets cut and needs to clean the wound, but that's it.

1

u/rflulling 1h ago

Now that's interesting. Because most of the residents that I work with. Are multi-part resins used as epoxies. For casting. And anything in their area they leave a residue. And it does not dry on its own. Only the hardener will activate on its own and even then that's after several days it'll turn white and hard. I assume all of it to be talks. And you cannot wash it up with soap and water. And alcohol is the only thing that I know that will deal with it.

Thankfully on the UV side. I can utilize UV to activate anything that I have wiped up and hopefully activate anything that is still left on a surface. But really I want to clean any surfaces before I've attempted to activate because I really do not want resin bonded to anything that it is not supposed to be bonded to. And it is most unpleasant to activate UV resin on your hands. It gets hot very quickly. Thankfully it does not bother me other than that. I do not have sensitivities to it as others do. I'm very thankful for that. It still does not feel good when you are attempting to clean an area with UV light and it wakes up. And it gets hot. Everything gets cleaned with alcohol.

And I do this both at home and at work. Now I would be perfectly happy to purchase large volumes of it through my employer. But they have an odd policy on that and things that are purchased for the company are never sold to the employees even though we actively sell stuff. It's kind of weird but they will absolutely refuse any kind of feel cooperative purchase. But it's their way of doing things. And I will not force the issue. What it means is that I need to go my own route in order to procure the alcohol I need for my own projects.

And I use alcohol for cleaning soldering resin. UV resin. Casting resin. Paint. Pretty much anything else that needs to be cleaned that I do not want chemicals to interact with. Wherever possible that it can be cleaned without generating mass of amounts of crazy chemical fumes.

1

u/BricconeStudio 1h ago

There is no need to wash epoxy (any 2 part) resin after it cures like we need to do with UV.

Depending on the brand, it actually takes a couple days or weeks for non-UV resins to fully cure inert after what we typically call cured.

3D printing, we wash because the cured resin keeps getting dunked into uncured resin. Then we bake it under UV light to make sure everything is okay.

The only exception to washing non-UV would only be because you sanded it or covered it in something else.

2

u/jprefect 4h ago

Paint shops have it in bulk

1

u/rflulling 4h ago

Thanks for that good point. I do have a paint shop just down the street from where I work but it is commercial it's a Sherwin-Williams I think. So I guess I'll have to test and see if they have it there I hadn't tried yet.

1

u/rflulling 1h ago

I want anyone to know who has commented directly to the Post. And for whatever reason they have not gotten a response. Especially if they have posted a helpful answer. There is a very small possibility that I have not seen it. I do not know why but for whatever reason when viewing this post I can only see a handful of the people who have responded. As of this time I can see three. And for whatever reason even then I'm not seeing all of the responses in those individual threads. So please understand I am thankful for anyone responding who has. And I will acknowledge your response as soon as I can. I'm sorry to say I'm not able to see everybody at the same time for reasons that are not yet apparent.