How to Glue Together Plastic Sheets in a Curve Arts and Crafts
Acrylic is a wonderful plastic that tin can be used for all sorts of different projects. It comes in both transparent and colored options, and can be machined, laser cut, or heated and bent into most any shape.
Types of Acrylic
Acrylic comes in two varieties: extruded and cast. While they may look identical, there are reasons you may choose 1 over the other based on your fabrication plans.
Extruded
Extruded acrylic has a lower melting temperature than cast acrylic, which makes information technology ideal for vector cut on a laser cutter. This same property, still, makes it less ideal than cast acrylic if you are milling or drilling it.
Cast
When laser engraving, cast acrylic is preferred, every bit the resulting engraving will exist a frosty white color that contrasts against the rest of the acrylic. Laser engraving extruded acrylic volition outcome in a clear engraving that doesn't contrast likewise.
Working with Acrylic
Flame Polishing
If the border of a cut piece of clear acrylic is frosty, and you'd like to go far clearer, it can be flame polished. While information technology takes some practice to get correct, slowly brushing the flame from a propane or MAP gas torch across the edges to melt them slightly can requite them a transparent, polished advent. Merely exist sure not to polish edges that must be glued, every bit the resulting joint may not be as stiff.
Bending
Using a strip heater, acrylic can be heated and bent at different angles. Store-bought strip heaters can be quite expensive, but there are ways to brand practice without them. If yous have a toaster oven, set it to almost 200º and leave the door slightly ajar. Place the role of the acrylic to be bent just above the open door, wait for it to soften enough, and then bend it to the angle desired. If you don't have a toaster oven, y'all can (carefully!) use a heat gun to heat the acrylic. When using these makeshift methods, curve the acrylic against the edge of a piece of wood or metal for straight, clean corners.
Bending Small Pieces
If you're angle a minor, thin slice of acrylic, you lot tin use the shaft of a soldering iron as a primitive strip-heater. Place the iron handle-first into its holder, plug it in, then use a set of third hands to hold the strip just above the atomic number 26. Brand certain yous keep an eye on it, as you don't desire the acrylic to droop onto the soldering iron.
Cutting
For directly cuts in acrylic, a plastic-scoring blade can be used. With a straightedge as a guide, pull the blade toward you, leaving a score mark. Score the acrylic several more times along the same line, then place the acrylic on the border of the tabular array and employ low-cal, quick pressure to snap the piece in two.
Y'all can also cut acrylic with more traditional blade tools such as a jigsaw, band saw, or tabular array saw. High tooth-count plastic-cutting blades are available for these tools, and are recommended.
Gluing
Acrylic is typically glued using solvent-based glues, such as Weld-On 4. Unlike many other gluing processes, acrylic glue softens the surfaces of the acrylic and welds them together, chemically bonding the two pieces into i.
To glue acrylic with solvent glue, typically a squeeze-bottle applicator with a needle tip is used. Put the acrylic on the border where y'all desire it, and identify the needle of the mucilage-filled applicator where the 2 pieces come across. Lightly squeeze the applicator while pulling it toward you. Capillary action will describe the mucilage into the joint. Agree the pieces in place for several minutes (a jig with clamps works great for this), and and so let the glue to set for 10–15 minutes before moving it. After 24–48 hours, the joint will cure to full strength.
Using solvent-based glues on laser-cut extruded acrylic can cause bang-up due to the internal stresses from temperature differences in the acrylic. To guard against cracking, identify the acrylic on a flat sheet of glass in a shop oven (not the one in your kitchen!) at about 180ºF (82ºC) for near 1 hour per mm thickness, and so allow them air cool. This will anneal the acrylic and relieve the built up stress.
Drilling
If you endeavor to drill a canvass of acrylic with conventional metal or wood drill bits, there'south a chance yous'll end up not bad it. If the sheet is thin, utilise a footstep drill fleck instead. If you're working with a thick piece of acrylic, you lot can apply conventional drill $.25 if you first place a piece of masking tape over the area to be drilled. If the hole is specially thick, spray some WD-forty to deed as a lubricant. This will help remove fries and dissipate heat as the hole is drilled.
Source: https://makezine.com/2015/10/29/skill-builder-acrylic/
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