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HT PLA at 260C

A project log for Backflow starship incense burner

A landed starship diorama with real smoke venting

lion-mclionheadlion mclionhead 01/10/2026 at 06:300 Comments

Printed a new one with polymaker HT PLA at 260C.  It just began clogging when printing supports, but the rest successfully printed in an ambient temperature of 70F.  Speed was 25mm/s.  

Painted it with the cheapest water based paint & cheapest brush from Michaels.  That went better than spray paint.  It needed 2 coats to get black enough.

It still ran in the laminations.  Drew pencil lines to try to define the boundaries & free pawed it.  The only way to get the sharpest boundaries would be modeling fiducials.  There might be a way to score the boundaries with a knife or expand the heat shield diameter by .2mm.


Reinstalled some of the stringers & epoxied some of the melted areas.  The only sure way to print the nose may end up being a solid block of PLA.  It might be cheaper to mail order metal from China.  Its eventual outcome is believed to be delamination of the layers because of uneven heating.  Ended up applying a thin coat of CA on the unpainted nose section.  A thin coat of CA on the entire nose before painting may end up being the way.

Added a layer of CA to try to improve the heat resistance.

It looked good enough to be a shame to oil up & begin the degradation.

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