Acrylic Flex Vat
Posted: Tue Aug 05, 2014 6:23 pm
So after seeing Finhead's flex bottom vat, I decided to try my hand at making my own.
The rectangle parts are laser cut, while the vat walls were saw cut and routed to make sure they'd bond well. The teflon is clamped between the top two pieces with a ring of silicone as sealant, and then that whole bit is set on the tensioning frame, and will be held down with some screw clamps.
I was hoping that I'd just be able to apply the silicone, let it dry, and then clamp the FEP, but that didn't give a water tight seal, unexpectedly. Fortunately, applying the silicone and then immediately clamping it all together seems to have done just fine, it'll just be obnoxious to have to let the new silicone dry when I eventually have to change out the FEP. For the lower tensioning frame, I just used a dremel to smooth the edges of the acrylic so the FEP shouldn't possibly be damaged while tensioning it.
Time to go test it out, I'll post the results!
The rectangle parts are laser cut, while the vat walls were saw cut and routed to make sure they'd bond well. The teflon is clamped between the top two pieces with a ring of silicone as sealant, and then that whole bit is set on the tensioning frame, and will be held down with some screw clamps.
I was hoping that I'd just be able to apply the silicone, let it dry, and then clamp the FEP, but that didn't give a water tight seal, unexpectedly. Fortunately, applying the silicone and then immediately clamping it all together seems to have done just fine, it'll just be obnoxious to have to let the new silicone dry when I eventually have to change out the FEP. For the lower tensioning frame, I just used a dremel to smooth the edges of the acrylic so the FEP shouldn't possibly be damaged while tensioning it.
Time to go test it out, I'll post the results!