ajn81
03-04-2009, 10:51 AM
A couple of people have asked me what method I use to bend acrylic for various projects that I have worked on, so I thought I would share my new acrylic bending tool.
The first couple of projects that I did with acrylic, I experimented with a heat gun method. Basically laying the acrylic over two boards and heating the the underside of the acrylic with a heat gun. Though I did have some success with this method, it was very difficult to get the sheet heated evenly for a good bend. Because of this there were some warped areas around the bend.
So last weekend my father-in-law and I started researching and thinking about a better way to do it. We thought about heat strip tape, but heard they take for ever and really don't work all that well. We could buy a bending table, but they cost like $400.00.
In the end we decided to try and make our own acrylic bending table. Using some of the ideas in this thread (http://www.mp3car.com/vbulletin/fabrication/111936-how-build-heater-strip-bend-acrylic-30-bucks-less.html) we came up with this:
http://www.austinanna.com/Images/BB/web_fish/bender.jpg
It basically is a heating element from a hair dryer placed between two sheet of MDF. The sheet of acrylic sits on the MDF sheet with the bend area placed over the heating element. The element is heated using a 12 volt battery charger.
Our first test for the bender was making an ATO Reservoir for Diana (Haeun):
http://www.austinanna.com/Images/BB/web_fish/ATO1.jpg
It takes about 4 1/2 minutes to heat 1/4" cast acrylic before its ready for bending and as you can see the result is a very clean, evenly heated bend.
If interested, we made a video demonstration (http://www.vimeo.com/3472275) using a scrap acrylic piece we had left over.
The first couple of projects that I did with acrylic, I experimented with a heat gun method. Basically laying the acrylic over two boards and heating the the underside of the acrylic with a heat gun. Though I did have some success with this method, it was very difficult to get the sheet heated evenly for a good bend. Because of this there were some warped areas around the bend.
So last weekend my father-in-law and I started researching and thinking about a better way to do it. We thought about heat strip tape, but heard they take for ever and really don't work all that well. We could buy a bending table, but they cost like $400.00.
In the end we decided to try and make our own acrylic bending table. Using some of the ideas in this thread (http://www.mp3car.com/vbulletin/fabrication/111936-how-build-heater-strip-bend-acrylic-30-bucks-less.html) we came up with this:
http://www.austinanna.com/Images/BB/web_fish/bender.jpg
It basically is a heating element from a hair dryer placed between two sheet of MDF. The sheet of acrylic sits on the MDF sheet with the bend area placed over the heating element. The element is heated using a 12 volt battery charger.
Our first test for the bender was making an ATO Reservoir for Diana (Haeun):
http://www.austinanna.com/Images/BB/web_fish/ATO1.jpg
It takes about 4 1/2 minutes to heat 1/4" cast acrylic before its ready for bending and as you can see the result is a very clean, evenly heated bend.
If interested, we made a video demonstration (http://www.vimeo.com/3472275) using a scrap acrylic piece we had left over.