Is there anything I can do to make the finish products look better?

[Tachout]

I am just wondering what I can do to make the finish on my prints look better. I can see the layer lines on mine and I have see on a couple of different figures people have printed that they are almost smooth. What step am I missing? I have printed a few different scale parts for a friend who is into RC Trucks now and he wants to build a scale garage for them. No problem, but I just do not want to have to do a bunch of filling over the layers and prep work before painting if there is a way around it.

[clough42]

There are a lot of things that can negatively affect the print quality. Even if you deal with everything, the quality will never be as good as a well-made injection molded part.

If you could upload a photo of something you've printed, we can have a better idea of where you are on the quality curve so we can make useful suggestions.

It might also help for us to have photos of the parts you're comparing.

[Tachout]

Thank you for the reply. I will put some things together tonight that I have printed, vrs what I am comparing them to.

[TopJimmyCooks]

bone stock makerfarm slicer config will give you possibly a .4 mm layer height depending on nozzle/extruder. have you tried a smaller layer height like .2mm?

[Zulfe]

If you want really smooth, glossy parts then you could always give your printed parts acetone vapor baths. This will only work with ABS parts, but it will still take the visible layers right out. If you don't want to acetone vapor bathe your parts, then maybe a different nozzle might be useful. I know E3D offers a 0.25mm nozzle for their v6 hot ends. I've found that my larger nozzles give slightly more visible layers. I usually need a magnifying glass to tell the differences, but it's there. The smaller nozzle you get, the slower you'll print, but the more detailed they'll be.

Also, if you're talking about very fine lines that all 3D printed parts have, then you're printing just fine. 3D printers aren't going to give you parts that have a level of quality equivalent to that of injected molded parts. You'll always have lines like in the image below:
IMG_0074_hidef.JPG