2016-01-10 (Su) Acetone Vapor Bath Experiment

Visibility in the first two videos was poor. Picture resolution and camera quality was the obvious problem but it was only partially true. The problem was the distance between the camera and the subject. The piece was too close to focus on clearly. Fortunately the first two videos were uneventful. A magnifying glass was positioned for the third video. It was part of a "Helping Hands" setup so it came with universal joints. Alligator clips were removed for this experiment.

New setup with magnifying glass

Two bowls were arranged below the clear plate used as the bottom of the vapor chamber. Previously the distance between the plastic pieces and the clock was small but more space was needed because the magnifying glass blocked some of the view.

Two bowls for support

Acetone was soaked up the same was as before. The shot glass was filled partially and acetone was allowed to saturate the bottom half of the paper then flipped to make sure it was fully saturated. In a later experiment the shot glass will be used as the acetone holder and allowed to freely evaporate into the chamber. For this reason a shot glass was chosen which had no printing which could be damaged by the vapors.

Soaking up acetone using a shot glass

Video of the processing was more eventful than the first two videos.  During the first two hours the plastic visibly changes from the rough printer finish to a glossy sheen and then visible softens even further. This method showed more effect than the same process with half the acetone. This method, processed for at least two hours, will produce a smooth, glossy print.

Time lapse video of acetone vapor test

A side-by-side comparison of the the prints was photographed. At the top were the control piece which resided in the chamber with no acetone. Below it were pieces which processed with 4in^2 of paper saturated with acetone. The bottom pieces were the pieces which just processed with 8in^2 of acetone soaked paper. Differences in the pieces can be seen best when the picture is viewed at high resolution.

 Side-by-side comparison of processed pieces and control

Close-up of pieces recently processed

The rest of the posts for this project have been arranged by date.

First time here?

Completed projects from year 1.
Completed projects from year 2



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2016-01-04 (M)

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