Abs plastic texture?

[Pinotte]

So I vacuum formed a case with abs plastic. My question is, how would I smooth out the ripply textured surface on the plastic? Does applying a coat of primer make it smooth or do i have to sand it down?

 

[Bush]

I'm not sure why you have ripples, but I used to vac form with polystyrene. Can you take a picture with better lighting and focus on the texture itself? If it is just a low profile bit of roughness you can use sandpaper with increasing grits until you like how smooth it is. If it has little holes and bumps and pocks that are noticeable, you may need a combo of sanding, filling with epoxy, and painting to level things smooth.

 

[Pinotte]

Abs plastic has a textured side which consists basically of small ripples. They are only superficial though, so i was wondering if a coat of primer would maybe smooth out the surface. If not i guess I'll have to sand sand it down like you said. Thank you.

 

[Bush]

Oh, I figured the sheets were flatter and didn't have the whole "cheap ABS texture" crap going on. I thought you meant some ripples formed from vac forming. Your best bet here is sanding flat then lots of primer with sanding to even things out.

If it is that annoying I would buy polystyrene, which is flat and non textured, and make another case altogether. It's going to take way too much work to even that out.

 

[Pinotte]

I see... I'll try sanding it down and if it takes too much work I'll look into styrene. Thanks Bush.

 

[Bush]

It should be pretty easy to sand down, but you'll need to keep sanding with higher grits to make it smooth. I find 80 grit often makes deep cuts into the plastic that can't really be fixed unless you use like 10 coats of paint to fill in the gashes. I reccomend starting with 150 or 250 grit to avoid dealing with that.

Lastly, if you want as smooth as possible, finish with steel wool. It really helps to clean up the remaining inconsistencies.

 

[Pinotte]

I'll keep all this in mind!

 

[bentomo]

I had this problem a while back with the pheonix cube. You probably ordered from the same site I did. I believe that's a manufacturing thing not a characteristic of ABS itself.

I vac formed it with the ripple side down. It does show up a little on the other side but it's much easier to sand. Plus it gives you a nice texture on the inside to glue stuff to.

 

[Pinotte]

I started frankencasing before seeing your comment Bentomo so I can't really start over
My initial plan was to vacuum form with the ripple side down but looking around on the net, I noticed that nobody was doing so and I just assumed it was a bad idea. I know, real smart...
And I actually bought the plastic from a local supplier in Montreal. But thanks for the advice, I'll do so next time.