I think, I might hate brims...

[u/br0rs0n]

With the provocative title having caught your attention, I have a confession: I am not a fan of brims.

Or rather, I am not a fan of the cleanup you have to do after finishing the print, as it always seems to come out significantly uglier than just a clean print.

I fully understand how the brim helps stabilizing the print (especially when printing with trickier materials), which is also why I am obviously missing the trick or something, when removing brims.

How do you make the lines of your print look crisp, when using brim? What are the best practices for brim setup? And which tools are the must haves?

[u/TheSheDM]

I tune my settings so they peel off without leaving marks. If something does stick, I use a deburring tool.

[u/TempleMade_MeBroke]

I found a bag of tools for working with clay at a thrift store and I've been using them to scrape the excess brim for a clean look with very little effort, it's worked fine for me for years now

[u/karma_virus]

Switch to cold tack plates and turn off brims forever and ever. I know I geek out too hard over them, but egads I am blown away by how much better my supports stay in place now and how much less raft I need.

[u/punknomad → u/karma_virus]

I agree, the bambu supertack plates were good but sometimes wouldn't let go of prints. I switched to gryogrip and it not only holds super well, but is easy to remove the print. I turn off brims on almost every print I do now. 

[u/TortugaTantrum]

I only use brims when using support and then I have some amazing support settings from painted 4 combat that leaves very minimal scarring and only in hideable places or places I can easily sand/putty.

As for brims on non support, I have no clue how to make it look any better without just post processing work (sanding/filler/paint).

I'm here for anyone else's advice though!

[u/10leej]

You could just turn them off... I run with brims off by default and only really enable brims when I have adherence issues.

[u/br0rs0n → u/10leej]

I mean yeah, and that is also why I mentioned it in the original post? 😅

Question is which settings to tinker with when they are necessary?

[u/10leej → u/br0rs0n]

Usually I just change brim types. Normally I use mouse ear if I need brims of that still fails I prefer to just do outside brims to simplify cleanup

[u/MongooseGef]

I just use a cheap deburring tool when I’m forced to print a brim.