Finishing TPU
Finishing TPU
I know that paint doesn't work well with TPU and that the typical way to color a piece is with dye. Does anyone have experience decorating prints that will see heavy use? Like if I wanted to use multiple colors, can dyes be brushed on similar to how one might hand paint a model? Is there a better way to do what I want?
Soaking is probably going to produce a much better/more durable finish than painting-on. You can use some sort of masking layer to shield sections you don't want dyed (or died different colors.) the problem with painting on is it's going to need more time to soak in to the part, than paint that merely dries onto the surface.
RIT dyes have worked okay for me. My process was to paint on masking fluid and let it soak in a hot dye bath. The fluid dries into what is basically a latex rubber coating that can then get rubbed off.
I'm not really concerned about how long it takes to do the work, but I like the masking idea.
It’s not really “work”- so much as an ocd level of attention to extremely tedious details.
Some tips: print off a small parts with all the same kind of features as the final bits so you can see how it takes, and stagger the time so you see how much time it takes.
Then use a white or natural color filament- the brighter the white, the more brilliant the final color will be. Especially important for light colors like cyan or yellow.
As far as masking goes, if you wanted color details on black, you can do a full soak with that color and then black (or a mix of all the other colors, the color scheme is CMYK not rbg) and you mask off where the details are supposed to be.