How to Print, Clean & Cure Resin Miniatures | Charm & Ember

There are a lot of ways to resin print a miniature.

This is ours.

At Charm & Ember, we print thousands of tabletop miniatures every month, so our process has changed quite a bit from when we were printing a handful of models at a time. Some of what we do is probably overkill for someone running one printer on the weekend. Other parts of our workflow are habits we wish we had started much earlier.

So this isn't meant to be the one correct way to resin print miniatures.

It's the process that works for us, why we do it, and a few things we've learned after processing a ridiculous number of tiny adventurers, monsters, weapons, bases, and failed saving throws.

Start by Organizing Your STL Files

This isn't the exciting part of 3D printing.

Do it anyway.

We keep our miniature files organized on a separate removable SSD instead of leaving everything scattered across downloads folders, slicer folders, cloud libraries, and creator websites.

Yes, most STL creators and marketplaces allow you to download purchased files again.

That's not really the point.

Six months from now, when you suddenly remember that one really cool orc you downloaded and want him for Saturday's game, you don't want to search through three different websites trying to remember who made him.

Having your own organized miniature library makes finding those files much easier.

It also gives you another copy if something happens to the computer you normally use for slicing.

A removable SSD isn't a substitute for a true backup — drives can fail too — so files you really care about should ideally exist in more than one place. But keeping a dedicated, organized STL library is much better than relying entirely on your downloads folder and your memory.

And trust us:

Eventually, "I'll remember where I got that miniature" stops working.

When You're Learning to Slice, Save the Whole Project

One of the best habits you can build when you're getting started is saving your slicer project files, not just the final file you send to the printer.

A project file preserves much more of what you actually did.

That can include your printer profile, resin settings, model orientation, supports, plate placement, and the other little decisions that turned an STL into a successful print.

At first, this can seem unnecessary.

Then you get a miniature that prints beautifully.

Or one that absolutely refuses to cooperate.

Three weeks later you're staring at it thinking:

What did I do differently last time?

If you saved the project, you can actually go look.

We've also had prints that seemed perfectly normal until it was time to remove them from the build plate. Maybe they released differently. Maybe a difficult model suddenly worked. Maybe something about the placement helped.

Those little differences are easy to forget once the print is physically in your hand.

The project file becomes your record.

As you get more experienced, you'll probably develop standard profiles and won't need to obsessively save every experiment. But while you're learning your printer and resin, those old project files can be incredibly useful.

The Printers We Use

Our current workhorses are ELEGOO Saturn 4 Ultras.

There are larger resin printers. There are newer printers. There are machines with different features.

For what we do, the Saturn platform has hit a really good balance between print capacity, reliability, replacement parts, support, and ease of maintenance.

That last part matters more to us than it probably does to the average hobby printer.

If you're printing a miniature for Saturday's game and your printer is down for an afternoon, that's annoying.

When you're manufacturing thousands of miniatures per month, downtime becomes a production problem.

We've also upgraded our resin vats to the Chitu Systems Hoopat quick-release resin vat system.

The big reason is simple:

Changing release film sucks when you have to do it constantly.

With the quick-change system, we can replace the film in roughly a minute during normal production instead of turning routine maintenance into an event.

For a hobbyist printing occasionally, that probably isn't a necessary upgrade.

For a print farm, shaving repetitive maintenance time off several machines adds up very quickly.

That's one of the recurring themes in our setup: we're not always looking for the fanciest piece of equipment.

We're looking for things that reduce downtime and keep minis moving.

The Resin We Use for Tabletop Miniatures

For most of our miniature production, we use Anycubic ABS-Like Resin Pro 2.

We've tested a lot of resin.

For us, this has landed in the sweet spot between detail, durability, consistency, and cost.

Cost matters when you're printing armies.

If you're printing three miniatures this month, spending significantly more per bottle on a specialty resin might not change much for you.

When you're going through resin at production scale, that calculation changes quickly.

At the same time, cheap resin isn't actually cheap if you're constantly dealing with failed prints, brittle weapons, broken minis, or inconsistent results.

We need miniatures that can print reliably, survive processing, get packed into a box, survive shipping, and eventually survive an actual gaming table.

ABS-Like Resin Pro 2 has worked well for that job in our setup.

That doesn't mean it's automatically the best resin for every printer or every person.

It's simply the one we've settled on after balancing the things that matter to us.

Our Four-Stage Cleaning Process

This is where our workflow starts looking a little less like a normal hobby setup.

Because of the number of minis we're processing, we use a four-stage cleaning system.

The basic idea is simple:

Don't ask one tank of cleaning solution to do everything.

We progressively remove uncured resin before the miniatures reach the cleaner stages of the process.

That keeps the later baths cleaner and helps us get consistent results.

Stage 1: The First IPA Bath

Our prints come off the printer still completely attached to their supports and rafts.

We release the entire print from the build plate directly into our first container of isopropyl alcohol.

And yes, we mean directly.

Pop.

Splash.

In it goes.

We give the prints a quick swish through the IPA to knock off as much of the uncured surface resin as possible.

This is the dirty bath.

Its job isn't to make the miniature perfectly clean. Its job is to take the worst of the uncured resin off before the print moves farther down the line.

After that first wash, we lift the prints out and let as much of the alcohol and resin mixture drain back into the container as possible.

Then they move to bath number two.

Stage 2: A Second IPA Bath

The second IPA bath repeats the same basic process.

Another swish.

Another chance to remove resin left behind by the first cleaning.

Another drain before moving forward.

Using two stages means our second bath doesn't become saturated as quickly as it would if freshly printed minis went directly into it.

More importantly, we're trying to get the miniature reasonably clean before it reaches the expensive part of our process.

Let the Prints Dry Before Removing Supports

After the second IPA bath, we let the miniatures dry.

At this point, we still haven't removed the supports.

That is intentional.

We want the excess IPA gone before the prints move into the next cleaning solution, and keeping everything on the support structure makes batches much easier to handle.

Once they're dry, they move to one of the most important parts of our workflow.

Stage 3: Rhino Resin Cleaner

We place the supported prints into a bath of Rhino Resin Cleaner for roughly two to three minutes.

Rhino isn't cheap.

That's one of the reasons we don't want freshly printed minis covered in liquid resin going directly into that tank.

The two IPA stages do the dirty work first so the Rhino can handle the finer cleaning without getting contaminated nearly as quickly.

But cleaning isn't the only reason we use it.

For our process, one of the biggest benefits happens when the miniatures come back out.

The supports become noticeably easier to remove.

When you're processing one miniature, spending another minute carefully fighting supports isn't a huge deal.

When you're processing hundreds of miniatures, support removal becomes one of the biggest bottlenecks in the entire workflow.

Anything that lets us remove supports cleanly and consistently without damaging the miniature saves a surprising amount of time.

So after the Rhino bath, we remove the supports before the final wash.

Stage 4: The Final Wash

Once the supports and rafts are removed, the miniatures go into an ELEGOO washing station for another cleaning cycle.

We normally run this stage for around two minutes.

This is where we're trying to reach the areas that are harder to clean by hand: folds in clothing, recessed details, spaces between limbs, armor joints, textured bases, and all the tiny cracks and crevices that tabletop miniatures seem specifically designed to have.

By this point most of the surface resin has already been removed, so the final cleaning stage can concentrate on what remains.

The difference between a miniature that looks clean and one that actually has the resin removed from those little recesses becomes very obvious once you cure it.

The Water Rinse

Rhino works extremely well for us, but it can take a while to completely dry.

To speed up that part of the process, we give the miniatures a final water rinse.

We do not do this under a sink.

We keep a dedicated container of water for this step.

The washing basket is lowered into the container and gently swished around for roughly 30 seconds. Then the miniatures come out and are allowed to fully air dry.

This is important: once that water has been used around prints that may still contain uncured resin or resin-cleaning solution, treat it as contaminated process water.

Don't dump it down the drain.

Follow the disposal instructions for the resin and cleaning products you're using and whatever rules apply where you live.

Resin printing is messy enough without sending uncured photopolymer into the water system.

Let the Miniatures Completely Dry

Don't rush from washing straight into curing.

We let the miniatures fully air dry first.

You don't want IPA, water, resin cleaner, or a mixture of all three hiding in the recesses of the miniature when it goes under UV.

This is also a good time to inspect the print.

Look for:

• Support pieces you missed

• Shiny or tacky areas

• Resin trapped in deep details

• Print failures

• Damaged weapons or small details

• Areas that still look wet

Fixing a problem now is much easier than discovering it after curing.

Finally, We Cure

Once everything is clean and completely dry, the miniatures are ready for their final UV cure.

For a typical medium-sized tabletop miniature, our setup usually lands around two minutes.

But don't treat that number like a universal setting.

Curing time depends on the resin you're using, the strength and design of your curing station, the size and thickness of the model, and even its geometry.

Start with the recommendations for your resin and curing equipment, then adjust based on your results.

The goal isn't to blast the miniature with UV for as long as possible.

You want the print fully cured while preserving the toughness and properties you wanted from the resin in the first place.

Our Complete Resin Miniature Workflow

So, from beginning to end, our normal production process looks like this:

1. Organize and archive the original STL files

2. Slice the miniature and save useful project files

3. Print on our Saturn 4 Ultras

4. Remove the supported print from the build plate

5. First IPA rinse

6. Second IPA rinse

7. Allow the print to dry

8. Rhino Resin Cleaner for roughly 2–3 minutes

9. Remove supports and rafts

10. Final wash for roughly 2 minutes

11. Dedicated water-bucket rinse for roughly 30 seconds

12. Fully air dry

13. Inspect

14. UV cure

Is that more complicated than you need for five miniatures?

Probably.

But remember what this workflow was built for.

We're not processing five miniatures.

We're producing thousands of tabletop miniatures every month, and over time our workflow has evolved around three things:

Consistent prints. Clean miniatures. Less wasted time.

If you're just starting out, you don't need to copy our entire setup.

The bigger lesson is to build a repeatable process.

Organize your files.

Save your successful settings.

Keep dirty cleaning stages separate from cleaner ones.

Let your prints dry.

Inspect them before curing.

And when you find something that works, make it repeatable.

Because after enough time with a resin printer, the goal stops being getting one good print.

The goal is knowing how you got it so you can do it again.

So…What Should You Print?

Once you've figured out your resin-printing workflow, there's a much more dangerous question:

Where do you get all the STL files?

There are free libraries, independent sculptors, massive subscription studios, monthly miniature packs, and more STL files on the internet than any reasonable human being could print in one lifetime.

In Part 2 of our Got a 3D Printer? series, we'll break down the different places you can find tabletop miniature STL files, what to look for before downloading or buying a set, and how our own approach at Charm & Ember fits into the much larger world of printable tabletop miniatures.