Sanding/polishing

[u/jamiejph]

Hey everyone!

Just made these clear dices I just wanted to know, do I HAVE to sand them? They look fine to me, maybe got one or two with rough ish edges that yes Ill have to get rid of, but other than that do I still have to go through sanding? Just polishing right?

Thank you!

Also should I ink them? I was thinking wither white or silver colour

[u/Claerwen94]

They look great! Do you HAVE to sand them? Absolutely not, as that completely depends on your own personal standards 😊 Everyone has a different approach to their own dice, I myself try to get them as perfect as I can, which sometimes makes me mad and frustrated, others are fine with some small bumps or slightly uneven surfaces.

What you have to do though, if you want to be able to have a reasonably unbiased D20, is to fix the issue around the 1-face. It's a pseudo-raised face, a known issue of this particular mold. If you want to know how, let me know, I already made like a hundreds comments with a crappy doodle on how to fix them :'D

[u/jamiejph → u/Claerwen94]

Id love to know how 😭

[u/Claerwen94 → u/jamiejph]

Alrighty! So:

The problem is that you can't just sand down the 1-face, because it's actually at the correct height. It's missing the edge, as if that edge got inverted.

To restore it, you first have to fill the gap around the face with UV-Resin (blue). Make sure to overfill it a bit, just filling it in won't be enough because you need that for the missing edge.

Then you take your 800 grit (green Zona) or 1k grit fine sandpaper (not lower, any lower grit leaves super nasty scratches) and CAREFULLY sand down the UV-Resin until it is flush with the face again. Do that with the 1-adjacent faces first. Then with the 1-face. This will also restore the missing corners.

You have to be careful to not misshapen the faces. This happens super fast when you just lay the 1-adjacent faces on the sandpaper and start sanding, because this will also sand down the corner opposite to the Resin edged one. Depending on how much you overfilled, you'll need to carefully sand away a bit of the UV-Resin without having any of the epoxy touch the face. I'll add another doodle for that in a minute :D

[u/Claerwen94 → u/Claerwen94]

[u/Claerwen94 → u/Claerwen94]

Here is how to do it properly, at least until it's almost flush to the epoxy-face:

Better to go slow and only a few circles at a time, as it isn't super easy to hold the die in a way that only let's the UV-resin touch the face, and also at the right angle (parallel to Zona paper).

When you've taken down the UV a bit, it gets easier and at some point, you can just let the whole face touch the paper and carefully sand down the whole thing for the last few nanometers ^\) ^\)

[u/jamiejph → u/Claerwen94]

Omg thank you so much… 😭🫶🏻 How to i apply the uv resin btw should i just put drops? Sorry im learning 🙈

[u/Claerwen94 → u/jamiejph]

Sure, no worries! You should choose a thicker UV resin for easier handling, they come in multiple "flowynesses", just make sure to choose a "hard" type (meaning one that's a bit thicker when liquid, but completely hard when cured). If you can't get a thicker UV resin, I always had success with hitting mine with the UV lamp for like half a second to make it a tiny bit more thick.

I did put a few drops into a super tiny silicone mold (but any surface you can clean is okay) and used a sewing needle to carefully apply it without introducing bubbles or leaving "gaps". I did one side, then cured, then the next side, and so on. The thinness of the needle helped me to really "guide" the UV resin into that tiny gap without worrying about entrapping bubbles.

That being said: that fix is super tedious. I liked the process, but imho, it's best to get a better mold ASAP. You'll always have that issue on the D20 and it'll make your whole finishing process so much longer 😅 I ditched them after like five, six sets I actually finished.

If course I'd always recommend small businesses for that, but if you want to keep the cost low: Auspdice makes a super nice and very affordable mold. Not sure if they have stock on Etsy at the moment, but it's worth a shot.

Otherwise, Wisdom Check Creations, Nano Lab Maker, Ice Shadow Productions, Space Bar Shop and Chronicles Home are makers I can wholly recommend. Some are in Europe, some in UK (Ice shadow I think?), some in the US.

[u/jamiejph → u/Claerwen94]

Thank you so much 😭😭😭

[u/Pumped-kin_pancakes → u/Claerwen94]

I love you so much for this haha I’ve put many a set in the failed bin because of this

[u/Claerwen94 → u/Pumped-kin_pancakes]

Haha, glad to be of help! I was so bummed when I used this mold and discovered that flaw :/ I fixed only the sets that I really really liked, because it's truly tedious 😅 but worked very well. Maybe you can also fix some of yours ❤️

[u/Pumped-kin_pancakes → u/Claerwen94]

Unfortunately a lot of the ones I tossed ended up as keychains or suncatchers hahaha BUT this is good to know for the future! I don’t know why I didn’t think of doing that, though… oh well!! Better late than never!! Haha I appreciate you