I have a few questions on the FTN as we get closer to Jan 1. I plan on submitting quite a few form 1s. This is my original form 1 that had a failure after less than 200 rounds. The particular day of failure was very cold and failed after only 2 standard capacity mags back to back not rapid fire. I followed PLAbois guide to a T.
- Is the FTN.4 the most solid 3d printed suppressor so far? Best performing?
- Best mounting method? I used KAK micro flash hider.
- Any other suppressors worth looking into? 5.56 as well as other calibers?
This failure happened with an 11.5” KAK “suppressor only” barrel. The core is annealed polymaker PA6 and I used a liberal amount of JB Weld.
No sealant but a whole lot of JB weld. Interesting. Well this shows I definitely need to give it more time to saturate.
I did see posts on the old fosscad of people boiling their prints. Maybe I’ll try that too.
Thank you!
You’d need to be careful when boiling as the thinner areas will absorb water easier, oversaturate and expand more than other areas causing it to warp. I don’t recommend boiling and neither does filament manufacturers or other commercial product manufacturers. The temp is also high enough to affect the crystalline structure and you may not be annealed properly anymore. A lot of people said to boil to anneal and moisture condition at the same time but that’s not how it works. The oversaturation will not let it anneal properly.
Being submerged in water will also result in the same issue just slower since it’s colder. It can be dunked but I wouldn’t leave it in water too long. I’ve had dust covers on handguns warp within a few hours in room temp water.
So what is your standard procedure?
Anneal in oven after print and then let sit at room temperature for weeks?
Leave it in my shower if I’m impatient but I typically have multiple projects going on so not touching something for weeks isn’t uncommon.
Quickest I would recommend is a wet sponge in a container or bag.
I left mine submerged in water maintained at 60c for about 2 days. I used a sous-vide circulator to keep it at temperature. This is how I interpreted the Fiberon guidance for moisture conditioning.
They specify ambient air at 70% rh. There is no room for interpretation.
What you read was their wet testing method which says submerged in water at 60c for 48h which oversaturates to 5.3% when equilibrium to air is 3.3%. Testing is a harsher environment as others may use their prints in wet environments. We don’t submerge our guns in water so we care less about the wet test results nor is it the ideal moisture conditioning method.