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Can anyone bend acrylic for me?
robertsig:
I am building two Nanocade kits purchased here:
http://nanocade.com/
The project is going good but I cannot heat bend to save my life. I already messed up one control panel doing it and have to order another.
Is anyone able to heat bend a piece of acrylic for me to 90 degrees for a fee? If so, please PM me.
The end result should look like the 4th and 5th pic on this page:
http://www.koenigs.dk/mame/eng/stepnanocade.htm
It looks easy, but apparently I am heat-bending challenged.
RandyT:
The key to bending acrylic is very localized heat at the bend line, and enough so that it just freely moves, but not so much that it sags or droops where it shouldn't, or worse, bubbles and burns.
What was the issue you encountered?
BTW, almost all plastic shops have proper benders, and probably won't charge you much to do it. If you have one in your area, you should give them a call before sending it to someone else on the internet.
robertsig:
I guess I need to find one then. Not sure what to look up in the yellow pages.
jasonbar:
I bent some polycarbonate recently for a non-arcade project.
1st, I took a piece of sheet metal & bent it to the shape I wanted to make a tool.
Then, I removed the protective backing sheets only from the area where I wanted to bend the plastic. If your plastic doesn't have its protective backing sheets from the factory, then slap on some masking tape to insulate the parts you don't want to bend.
I used a cheap heat gun (from American Science & Surplus, I think), heated the plastic a while, then manually bent it (wearing leather gloves to protect my fingertips). I removed the heat & held the plastic in place till it cooled.
That's about it. It took a few tries to get the results I wanted. You might want to overbend your tool a little, as there will be some spring-back of the plastic.
Thanks,
-Jason
RandyT:
--- Quote from: robertsig on April 25, 2011, 05:49:12 am ---I guess I need to find one then. Not sure what to look up in the yellow pages.
--- End quote ---
Plastic Fabricators, or just Plastics. It might take a couple of calls, but they are pretty common businesses and can usually be found in most small cities or larger towns. The local sign shop might be able to help you as well, if they do plastic signs.
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