How to bend
Perspex In Oven
Acrylic Bending (for Dummies)
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hey everybody today we're playing with
acrylic and bending it with a line
bender - quick disclaimers one I am not
very good at this this is more art than
science we know some guys who are very
very good at this and they do some great
work I'm not that guy
they taught me everything that I know
but they still know a lot more than I do
disclaimer number two this line vendor
is way too long for our purposes but
this the one that I have so it's not I'm
gonna use moving on and in playing with
plastic I'm going to remake our
unfortunately late dust rod for the CNC
machine with a couple of modifications
[Music]
[Applause]
modification number one since the move
our CNC machine is in a different
configuration so our natural start point
is down at the bottom to where this is
overhanging the edge so this is where
the suction is coming from and it's just
sucking void so you're it's not actually
getting dust from this side so we are
remaking it a little more like so so
that suction comes from here and it's
always going to pull from here because
this clear I'm not sure you can see it
but this will be covered when it goes
that over the edge of the table we're
going to put the door on the other side
because the desk is down to the side and
I'm gonna make it less broken that's
kind of the main thing so line bending
this this is a line bender you can
probably based in the name tell what
that's gonna do I did this one a week or
so ago and it came out honestly I'm
pretty proud of how well it came out
considering the fact that as I said I'm
not great at this it's more art than
science and I didn't have the space that
all my bends are going to take up exact
but I came pretty close so with this
going here it's a little long here and I
had to kind of shrink up the backside on
the recut piece so we're gonna peel the
plastic on this put them on the bender
and we're gonna start bending
oh and before I start one of the quick
points to save myself some headache on
my cut I went and put in Doc's reach Ben
should you have to be starting and
stopping so that I can take those dots
get him lined up
get him square
yeah
weighted down and camp to 11 minutes
because that's so long this takes so I
go get my phone and set a timer a quick
note as to how I came to eleven minutes
for this heat of bender and this
thickness of acrylic
it was cheer trial and error and in this
camera so you can kind of see this
little crack right here that's where on
the first time around I got a little
touch impatient and try to bend it soon
it was ready and it cracked just a
little bit so 11 minutes and I think
we're like a couple of seconds from our
11 minute mark so I will show you on a
subsequent one how this kind of gets a
ripple effect going through it but for
right now I'm just going to do the bend
and yeah so you are going this way and
I'm just using blocks as a hard stop for
my my 90 degrees and later on I've got
another one cut that'll do my 60s yeah
so Mark's gonna wipe this down with some
cold water to help cool it off a little
faster and make it set
yeah and pretty much did it so you can
see there we got a good 90 on that and
as part of aforementioned I'm not
perfect at this you can see is a little
bit a little bit of dots in here that's
where that's where the irregularities in
the fiber that makes up the actual blind
bender were closer or farther from the
piece so we've got a little bit melty
here if I are professional this would be
bad
this ressure piece this would be bad but
this is my dust collector so it's
perfect and moving on we'll go to the
next bent
that's enough that
I'm going I don't care I don't care
about your timer I'm going I'm living
dangerously
I'm noticing that as we do subsequent
bends we're getting more and more little
bubbles in there that's because the
heating element is continuing to get
hotter as we go and we were leaving it
on there for the same amount of time so
we're gonna go down from 11 minutes to
like 10 and a half or even just 10 see
you in 10 minutes
[Music]
this came up pretty well as you can see
in this camera here the massage the
bends a little bit but it's going right
where it's supposed to be the one small
thing is that cuz I never actually the
CAD model this one I just kind of
modified my old one which was a CAD
model into into 2d the bottom kind of
extra shield here is coming past the
line of where the the door needs to be
so I just need to cut that off so that's
pretty much a non-issue next step is
gonna remake these arms so this is the
bottom dust shroud a bit that has to be
in this tight to go in between the the
pylons that the whole gantry stands on
but it's got to come out this far so
that I can actually get up around the
the spindle housing so I have to figure
out again what that distance is and then
make a spacer block that distance to do
the first Bend and then do the second
bend to lay it back down that same
distance remembered halfway through
setting up before that we actually had
some extra line bender tapes so I rigged
those up in a minimally dangerous
fashion temporarily with our spacing
here where this lets me do is that if I
can only do one at a time
I would have to to get to get this so I
would have to do this line Bend that up
and then put this one in the exact
perfect place for that angle to get my 1
and 1/8 inch offset right there however
if I can get both those points to be
able to bend at the same time I can then
just set it on some one and one in 3/16
one and eighth whatever we cut one in
3/16 is our actual spacing
spacers and it'll just kind of
automatically just flop over to flop
over to that configuration I'm taking
weird hand gestures here that don't just
show you probably a time lapse
looking at what we can do is get glue in
here and then ways up put that up and
once that gets in place yeah I so it was
pretty good this can be glued basically
because of where it is now because it's
gonna move a half of its language well
yep and here we have the finished
product it's all nice and clear and
clean and not broken which is kind of
the key thing I was going for on this
new one I think what I think I like
talking about this is I like going back
to using material but I don't often to
work with and relearning old stuff and
then learning some new stuff on top of
that so as I said finished product comes
down and tapers around so that the the
Booch doesn't hit the the towers that
hold up the the y-axis we got the
aluminum strips here to keep the brushes
on on my older version I had a wave
overcomplicated system because I was
trying to outsmart myself in it was just
a big pain in the ass so this is this is
simple we got the door back here for
access to the bits we can just visually
inspect going to zero on the z-axis and
yeah it works got the the bottom part
here that so when suctions happening
happening even on the edge of the bed
we're still getting good suction we
recently read zero eyes the whole bed we
got a new piece of material under this
for our sacrificial bed and zeroing that
you're removing about 1/32 of material
over the entire four foot by four foot
area which mats out to a large volume of
dust which was all very well collected
and into the separator over there
calling this one a success
mostly because I haven't started
designing a version for in my head yet
I'm gonna I'm gonna stick with three for
a while that's all I got for right now
we will see you next time
action spindle action spend all that
doesn't do anything
