Resin Cleanup: A Sticky Situation

We’ll admit it. We like the results of resin 3D printing, but we don’t always care for the mess. We aren’t alone, and a common issue is to have drips of resin on your LCD screen — a potential disaster. You ought to have a screen protector, but yeah… you should back up hard drives, too. [Jessy] has the same problem and he has heard that you can easily clean cured resin from the screen using wood glue. Does it work? Check out the results of three glues in the video below.

We winced to see glue going on the screens. [Jessy] cured some resin on the screens deliberately for a test. He used Elmer’s wood glue, Gorilla wood glue, and Titebond II wood glue. While there is a bit of a price difference between the options, they are all fairly inexpensive.

After letting the glue cure for 24 hours, it should peel up and take the resin up with it. Getting under the corner to start peeling was challenging and the whole thing left a huge mess. In retrospect, [Jessy] mentioned it might be a good idea to put a tab under the glue while wet to provide a handle.

It probably doesn’t matter, though. Only the Gorilla glue grabbed any resin at all and even that wasn’t very effective. [Jessy] suggests using alcohol and a plastic scraper if you have this problem. We suggest a screen protector.

There are two upsides, though. First, the casting of some brands of wood glue made some interesting pieces that might have use in some other context. Second, the video comments have other ideas that might be worth trying including hot sponges and cheap material for screen protection.

Usually, we are more worried about getting resin to stick not unstick. If you are still on the fence about the mess versus rewards of resin printing, check out our overview.