[TriEmbed] Acrylic Bending

[Glen Smith]

I have a couple rolls of NiChrome wire I bought to do something very
similar, cutting foam. Adam, you are welcome to a few feet of it to get
yourself going.

Back in 1985'ish I made a letter opener in high school shop class by
cutting out a piece of lexan/plexiglass, putting it in the oven and
twisting it to shape. Sanding and polishing were the only post processing
that we did.

Glen

On Thu, Jul 9, 2015 at 9:52 AM Shane Trent via TriEmbed <
triembed at triembed.org> wrote:

> Adam,
>
> Bending acrylic is not hard if you build or can get access to a heater. I
> thew together a bender something like the one on this page and had great
> results. The only part I did not have in my parts bin was the nichrome/rene
> wire. The annealing has to do with reducing post bending stress to prevent
> future crazing or cracking. I never annealed but only saw micro-cracks
> where I had mounted push-in RGB LEDs in laser cut holes and those cracks
> were not visible unless you picked it up and were looking for them. I think
> the cracks came from the plasticizer in the LEDs because I have never seen
> cracks anywhere else in cut or bent acrylic. I believe you can also bend
> ABS using the same setup.
>
>
> http://www.wa4dsy.com/robot/hot-wire-plastic-bender
>
> Nichrome wire had helpful tables for picking the desired temp and then
> helping you get the right gauge for your application so you can reach the
> target current for your wire length and power supply voltage.
> http://jacobs-online.biz/nichrome_wire.htm
>
> Better wire than Nichrome (last longer, stronger) but less design
> information. Design using Nichrome tools then translate to pick the best
> Rene for the design.
> http://jacobs-online.biz/rene_wire.htm
>
> Shane
>
> On Thu, Jul 9, 2015 at 8:43 AM, Adam Haile via TriEmbed <
> triembed at triembed.org> wrote:
>
>> I know I've talked to someone here about this before... does anyone have
>> to tools and skill to custom bend acrylic? I know you generally just do it
>> with some NiChrome wire, but I'm sure there's a bit of an art to it and I
>> vaguely remember something about having to anneal it afterward? Either way,
>> I'd rather find someone who knows what they are doing.
>>
>> My wife would like some clear/white acrylic display stands to put on some
>> existing shelves so she can have multiple display levels on the same main
>> shelf. We've looked around and they to make things like what she wants, but
>> they are all either exorbitantly expensive or not the right size.
>> Basically, what she needs is something about 3" high, 4" deep, and 30"
>> wide. Those aren't the exact dimensions, and the width could be split up if
>> need be. Anyone here thing that would be doable?
>>
>>
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>
>
> --
> A blog about some of my projects.  http://fettricks.blogspot.com/
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