Waterproofing PLA vases

I like printing PLA vases, but they all leak water, making them unsuitable for flower vases. Someone said spray with polyurathane, is this a good method? any suggestings for type or brand?

Have you tried increasing your walls to 8?

Haven’t done many vases but I pour FlexSeal into the vase, roll it around to coat the inside well, then let it drain out. So far that has worked.

Here’s what I used.

Here’s an example of the product I made with it. This was the largest and heaviest object I printed in my printer. Approximately 240mm tall.

So far it hasn’t leaked and my wife has not complained and believe me, if she could find a reason to complain… :joy:

I should add that this triple-thick formula requires only one heavy coat and let it cure for 72 hours before filling the container with soil and water.

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This is one of my latest prints related to this topic. It holds (flawlessly, I might add), water, beer or wine. I kept it full with water for a bit more than 24 hours. No leaks, and that without using any seal or spray… perhaps i was lucky.




For projects like this do you increase the number of walls or is that irrelevant outside of strength? In short, is the Rust-Oleum doing the work of holding water or a combination of that and more plastic in your experience? Thanks a bunch for the recommendation by the way. I have been wanting to print some vases for my wife, but I needed them to actually hold water :slight_smile:

Increasing walls will definitely have a positive effect, especially when using sparse infill at low percentages or doing any kind of post-process cleanup with let’s say sanding. However, there is a limit. For example, if you’re getting see-through impressions of the underlying infill structure, such as a honeycomb pattern showing through the surfaces, then switching the wall order from the default inner/outer to outer/inner and increasing the wall thickness will force the exterior walls to firm up first, giving a smoother appearance and aid in water tightness. But there is a limit. I found that anything beyond 3 or 4 walls doesn’t really improve it. The default is 2. Note that this can dramatically increase print time.

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However, as you already surmised, the spray paint is really doing all the work and I have to confess that the triple thick spray paints really are the lazy man’s best friend that I unabashedly resort too when I am too lazy to smooth a print. You don’t have to use Rust-oleum either. Any polyurethane triple thick will work.

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=triple+thick+glaze+polyurethane

I’ve had luck brushing it on too. It just sort of smooths out on its own. I did find that a heat lamp helps accelerate the curing process but be careful. Too much heat and you get this affect. Not one of my finer moments. :yum:

Fandamntastic! I learned more in that post than the last twenty I have read trying to solve a different problem. It only took me 48 years to learn there was such a thing as triple thick spray paint. Always a good day when you learn something new…especially at my age.

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Very cool!
I also printed an easy one out and it worked just fine. But I want to try also to print it with PET-G