Has anyone tried acetone smoothing Bambu’s own ABS? I have a working theory, but I don’t really want to spend the AUD$43 to test it.
The technical data sheet mentions a formulation which is less prone to warping, which is similar to eSun’s ABS+ which cannot be acetone-smoothed. If Bambu’s filament also cannot be acetone-smoothed, it lends some credibility to the theory that eSun produces Bambu’s filaments.
Anyway, if anyone has actually tried it, please confirm/deny. Thank you <3
Get a glass and put a little nail polish remover in it. Then snip off a small piece of BBL filament and drop it in the glass. Wait. If the filament still looks like filament after an hour or so, it doesn’t look like it’s started to dissolve, it’s not going to dissolve and you’ll have answered your question. 
Wonderful. Now if you could just explain how I do this without spending the $43 on filament, I mentioned in my post? — Surely it’s reasonable to ask if someone has done this, prior to purchasing a spool myself.
I’m not an idiot. Please don’t treat me like one.
Ah. My apologies. I didn’t read your post “right” and didn’t pick up on that. Should have. Sorry. 
I think I actually have some Bambu ABS. Gotta dig through my filament boxes and see. If I can find some, I’ll give it a shot and let you know.
Thank you. I appreciate it, but I really don’t want you (or anyone) to go to any specific trouble. Lots of people do acetone smoothing, so I figured surely someone would have this knowledge in their back pocket without having to exert any particular effort.
It’s not a question I would specifically pay $43 to answer quickly, but once I run out of the several rolls of eSun ABS+ I have sitting around, I might buy a Bambu one to satisfy my curiosity if nobody comes along to post in the mean time.
As you can imagine, it’s hardly the most pressing issue. … at any rate, I appreciate your follow-up reply. Cheers for your time.
Well while I sadly don’t have any ABS from BBL to test for you this has been informative. I always figured any ABS acetone would effect, but on other hand I should know better as PLA+ is way different then PLA. HPLA+ really shocks the mind if you get the stuff from Proto Pasta for an example. I am annealing it at over 200F so it can handle more heat 
I have tried acetone smoothing ABS and ASA from many sources. It seems as a general rule if a manufacturer make claims about their filament being “better” or “easier to use” then the additives used will probably prevent acetone smoothing. Likewise if the product has a name such as ABS+.
A somewhat belated response, but I only recently joined here…
As no one else was able to try this, and I just happen to have both Bambu ABS and acetone handy, I thought I would give it a try. I’ve not tried smoothing ABS but followed RocketShed’s suggestion above and dropped a bit of filament in acetone and can confirm that the Bambu ABS goes soft and mushy in acetone and starts to decompose to goop within the hour. The Bambu ASA does the same.
Thanks for testing that, Bobbo. Now that I have a rough reference to compare it to, I can compare that to eSun’s ABS.
I don’t think any ABS is completely acetone proof, but I think the sort of timeframe you described would make it unsuitable for smoothing. I think regular ABS is fairly instantly affected… I’m gonna have to get a sample eventually, I think and do a side-by-side.
Thanks to you guys for your time.
I know that is an old post, but I found it while looking for users’ experiences with BL ABS smoothing.
I don’t make aesthetic prints regularly or like the hard work of postprocessing. So, I became a fan of using ABS because of the acetone vapour smoothing.
I had one planned, so I decided to go with BL ABS filament (yellow and red). I used the filament in the past for other prints, and the results were excellent, with some minor issues in the overhang cooling. The filament was properly dried (mass loss method), but the smoothing process outcome was not as good as expected.
Compared to others, BL ABS reaction with acetone wasn’t so intense, with visible effects only on the less problematic zones. I tried with some prints to increase the residence time and better clean up the parts (e.g. deburring, cutting, slightly sanding), but the improvements were minor.
Besides that, there was a noticeable loss of colour intensity during the drying process.
It may be my incompetence, but I successfully repeated the process with smart-materials ABS.
Has anyone else tried and can share the experience? I am already solving the issue of the classic sanding, priming and painting, which I was looking to avoid; however, I would like to understand if it was a single problem (mine) or if others had similar or problematic experiences.
Thank you for sharing your experience… so the ABS isn’t so great for acetone smoothing? I wonder how the BL ASA does.
Hi @baronlanteigne.
I am not sure. I may mess up the protocol. I will try it again, so I would like to read about others’ experiences.
Hey. I printed a part in Bambu ABS and have tried smoothing for the first time. I suspect you may be correct that it seems less affected.
If the part in touching the acetone, ie I testing some filament in the acetone it does soften and dissolve but the smoothing process is slow. I have had this part in the container for a few hours and it’s smother than it was but nothing like what I have seen online.
I will test some different filaments later, I’m not sure if I have any straight ABS in stock.
I’ll give this a go as I only have Bambu ABS now. I’ve done it in the past with other ABS and found I had to leave it in a lot longer than the you-tubers said. 15mins yielded nothing at all. I eventually forgot about it and can back to it about 6 hours later and got a really cool looking Prusa buddy pug albeit way to much. When I tried a tub with a bowl of acetone and a fan, it took forever. Its a lot faster in an old paint tin with paper towels around the outside held by some magnets.
I can 100% verify you CAN’T vapor smooth Bambu ABS. The print will get soft but will not “glaze”.
Yes I can vouch for this, I eventually got around to trying it. It just seems to get a wet look but never gets smooth. After about 6 hours I had a pile of gloop 
I was going to try using acetone for Bambu ABS. Good thing I decided to look online before I did it.
Dipping seems to work well for me.
Thanks. I will try it out.