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As the title suggests, I am looking to remove nylon that has adhered strongly to my build platform. Mechanical methods (ex. scraping) haven't yielded results, so I was hoping for a solvent or something that would remove the adhered nylon.

Also, the parts themselves remove well enough, but some areas have a bit of nylon that simply persist.

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One important and missing aspect of your question is what is your build platform? Glass is likely to give you the best results, while aluminum has some risks, depending on your choice of solvents.

My hasty research at first showed Glacial Acetic Acid to be a candidate, but as a very strong acid, it will require some care in use.

I found a pdf document with a comprehensive chart of possible solvents for nylon. The above noted solvent (100% acetic acid) lists with an Unsatisfactory result. I read this at first as being unsatisfactory for dissolving, but the correct interpretation is that nylon is unsatisfactory for being resistant to this solvent. Additional notes show nylon will dissolve in this solvent. I have a bottle of white vinegar (acetic acid) but the panel reads as five percent concentration, almost certainly ineffective for your purposes.

There are other solvents listed as unsatisfactory, which points them in the right direction for your purposes. A couple of them are in the chlorine family and no reference is made regarding concentration. Chlorine of even weak concentration will attack aluminum very quickly.

Despite the weak concentration of the white vinegar, I've dropped a segment of 3 mm nylon to see what happens overnight and may report via an edit here later.

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  • $\begingroup$ I suppose I should have clarified on the build platform material. I don't know. It appears to be garolite, or some similar fiber-reinforced polymer, which has been polished. As it happens, I do have glacial acetic acid (for neutralizing NaOH solutions) available, so I will give that a shot. I'll post back if it does work. It turns out nylon is tricky because it is quite chemically resistant. $\endgroup$
    – Hari
    Commented Apr 1, 2017 at 21:46
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    $\begingroup$ of all the materials which your bed could be composed, FRP may be one of the better choices to be resistant to the acetic acid. You could also reduce the exposure to the bed by building a dam around the nylon using modeling clay or similar material. My experiment with the white vinegar was a waste of white vinegar, as expected. As you already have the chemical at hand, you can easily test a small piece in a glass jar to see how quickly it dissolves. $\endgroup$
    – fred_dot_u
    Commented Apr 2, 2017 at 0:59

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