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Plexiglas

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RandyT:


--- Quote from: VanillaGorilla on April 20, 2011, 04:26:38 pm ---
--- Quote from: RandyT on April 20, 2011, 01:55:16 pm --- Acrylic also expands and contracts with temperature.  It could do it enough to cause a buckle.

--- End quote ---

Hence the hair dryer suggestion. Its not magic, just plain old thermal expansion. If the panel is warped from heat, or binding tension, heat may again reverse it. Heat may force the panel to shift, without having to remove everything. It costs nothing to try, and wont damage anything. It just may save you a bunch of time. We used to use hair dryers for all manner of adjustments to door panels, dash boards, moldings, etc in the auto body repair field, back when I was a technician. No better feeling than getting paid 4 hours to strip a door down to repair a buckle, when you just point a heat gun at it for 10 minutes and it fixes itself. Same goes for exterior body moldings and ground effects kits.

Instead of weight after heat, you might try 'quenching' the plexi with a large frozen 'something'; (deep dish pizza, steak, bag-o-ice), to force the retention of any changes that the heat might impart.Dont knock it till you've tried it!

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Anything gained as a result of thermal expansion will just be lost again when it cools.  To fix this issue with heat, one would need to heat the plexi sufficiently to change the material distribution across the distance of the buckle.  Based on my experiences with the material, it ain't gonna happen.  Besides, it needs to contract in this instance, not expand.

Something else to consider with acrylic, it's brittle.  If it's binding, and you force it to expand, the result may not be movement, rather a nice crack for your efforts.  IMHO, it's much safer to loosen everything and see if you can re-position it without the stress.  Any other "quick fix" will come back to haunt you.

scofthe7seas:

Well, regardless of what I would have ended up doing, I planned to loosen it all to see what was going to happen. Which I did. My concern regarding further steps to be taken were founded on the possibility of warped Plexiglas, which apparently was not a thing to worry about because as soon as I started loosening things on the left side of the CP, the buckle popped out, and came up on that side. Continued to loosen buttons in that direction and Tada! No more buckle. My fingers are tore up though. I swear I don't remember those buttons being that tight when they were screwed on! I finished last night, now it's time for testing to make sure I didn't mess anything up.
Thanks for everything guys!


RandyT:


--- Quote from: scofthe7seas on April 21, 2011, 12:57:16 pm ---My concern regarding further steps to be taken were founded on the possibility of warped Plexiglas, which apparently was not a thing to worry about because as soon as I started loosening things on the left side of the CP, the buckle popped out, and came up on that side. Continued to loosen buttons in that direction and Tada! No more buckle. My fingers are tore up though.

--- End quote ---
:applaud:

BTW, if you have a lot of buttons, this will be the best two bucks you'll ever spend.  You may not need it often, but when you do, your fingers will thank you. ;)

scofthe7seas:

I had thought about getting one on my last order from you, but figured I wouldn't need it. Next time!

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