Skillbuilder: Seven Tips for Working With Acrylic
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 21 มี.ค. 2016
- Acrylic is a wonderful plastic that 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 almost any shape.
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Further Reading: makezine.com/2015/10/29/skill-...
Music: cloudkickermusic.com/
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Really cool, straight to the point with clear instructions and no talking, thanks !
J'étais sur de vous trouver ici ahah ;)
+Boba Tank lol, je me suis un peu battu avec le plexiglas ces derniers temps :)
Terrible video. Incorrect and bad practices. Good luck if you’re new to acrylics and try to follow these. You’ll likely either fail, or at best produce some kind of trash acrylic work. Nope.
You can also use a Heat Gun to bend the acrylic. Also keep some water and a sponge near you when you do bend acrylic cause you can use the water to cool the acrylic quicker to hold the bend.
These little videos are so useful. I love what y'all are doing with them and hope to see more! Great work.
Now, this is how to do a how to video. No wasting my time, just info that is essential. Thank you!
Great video! When I was in middle school we had excellent shop classes which included injection molding, ceramics, and working with acrylic sheets.
Not only was this helpful, but also it had a kick ass soundtrack. Thumbs up to the musicians and DIY'ers.👍
Thanks this is a really great piece for the skillbuilder series! Thanks for sharing!
Some of the best tips I’ve ever seen and well executed
Excellent video! I've been wanting to get into making stuff with acrylics, and this video gave me a leg-up on getting started in only three minutes! Love the concise, no-frills, just-the-tip format, certainly keep videos like this coming! :D
I'm planning a micro atx case for pc, more likely will use Acrylic. thanks for a video!
I just finished a project using a ton of acrylic and polycarbonate! I could have used this months ago! Great vid.
Excelle nt, that's useful and inspiring, especially the part about drilling with a step bit. Thanks.
Keep on trucking ! (from France)
First time I see this channel! I learnt so much from a single video that I subscribe immediately.
You use acrylic cement to bond acrylics and you want a smooth surface, not a rough one as indicated here. Tap plastics has some great videos for this type of work.
I wouldn't use glue on a flame polished edge though. I'm surprised they didn't mention that.
+EpicSpence I'm pretty sure they used the flame polish as just an edge finish. I'm not sure that it would really matter when using acrylic cement, though.
+Luis F Gerena exactly what I was thinking.
+Luis F Gerena To elaborate, an acrylic cement is actually a solvent that melts the acrylic and allows it form into a single object. Unlike a glue, the cement does not stick around after the bond is complete. A smooth interface helps the dispersion of the low viscosity solvent, allowing for a more complete bonding.
This is the first time I've ever seen anything but a clean, perfectly flat edge recommended for bonding (aka solvent welding for exactly the reason Stefan Buller notes). You are supposed to be able to have the edges so tight that they are capable of filling by capillary action with weld-on #4 or similar low viscosity solvent.
I've never tried bonding flame polished edges. Flame polishing alone never seemed to make them smooth enough. Typically I sand them with progressively finer grit sandpaper (to 600 or 800), then buff with tripoli followed by Fabulustre. It leaves the edge perfectly smooth and transparent, as though it had never been cut.
In my experience, when drilling holes larger than 5mm (3/16"), the best way to prevent the drill from catching on the other side and cracking the acrylic is to reverse the drill's rotation (unscrewing direction) and rev it up, letting friction with the drill tip melt away the final acrylic layer of the hole.
Really helpful for my business, I have business of Acrylic products but didn't know enough about how it's used to make products as I outsource it to specialist.
Now I can let him know a few things from my end
Very good informations.
2:50 Petroleum works very good for cooling/lubricating. It keeps the drilled/milled/grinded surface clear.
2:55 This is very important! The most dangerous part is, when the drill comes out on the back! If you push only a tiny bit to hard, you've get a 'nice' crater...!
Man, Cloudkicker makes some awesome tunes!
This Summer i'll be working with some Acrylic This helps me a lot thank you :)
Beautiful video. Short and informative.
Really cool tips!
There was some good advice in this tutorial, but the advice regarding gluing will result in consistently below-optimum joint bonding.
Acrylic bonds using a solvent welding principal in which the two surfaces are chemically softened, and then a merging of the molecules in the two pieces takes place. Especially when using SciGrip 3 or 4 which are water thin, only the high spots in the 2 pieces will merge if the surfaces are rough, resulting in a weak joint. These products will not fill voids. Ideally the surfaces will have 100% contact before the solvent welding process is initiated.
SciGrip 16 is a product using a mixture of methylene chloride and acrylic particles, and can be used to fill voids where imperfect surface preparation is unavoidable. Sanding already smooth, even surfaces before application of this product is not required and does not improve joint strength.
Flame polishing is an edge treatment only to be used on surfaces which will not be bonded. Because of the chemical changes which acrylic undergoes as a result of heat application, crazing and joint failure are often the result where solvent welding is attempted on flame polished surfaces.
so basically with the solvent welding you want to sand the edges that will be welded together for a more stronger bond?
For solvent gluing you don't want a flame polished edge but really they should be smoother than that. Also for flame polishing you need the higher temp that MAP gas provides to do it right (according to tap plastics).
isnt there chemical polish that achieves the same effect?
isnt there chemical polish that achieves the same effect?
You can use the vapours from the solvent adhesive to polish acrylic and polycarbonate however it needs a special kettle and protective equipment. Not sure of other chemical options, normal polishes can be used along with elbow grease though. btw, your comment does not appear under the video due to stupid google+
I just sand starting at 150 grit and move to 600 or 800, followed by buffing with tripoli then fabulustre. Gives a perfect transparent edge.
Good old elbow grease does work pretty well :) Scraping can also be used to get to a pretty fine finish ready for the finer grits. A single edge razor works pretty well.
Huh, Make channel as a source of awesome new music recommendations, now that's something.
Great video! No BS and straight to the point. Need to make some motorcycle windshield extensions.
excellent video. keep this type of stuff coming
When drilling, use your drill in reverse with high speed. You melt through instead of drilling. You can then break off the melted bits easily. (The rake angle on most twist drills are meant to pull at the material being drilled. This cracks acrylic.)
Great tutorial & some great tips & music 😀
When drilling acrylic it's best to back off the cutting edge of the drill, as you would for brass, so that the drill doesn't snatch as it passes out the other side.
+Donald Sayers
In that respect its better to use a backup plate so the drill doesn't realize it has penetrated the work piece.
Oh yes do that too.
corrections to this: use slow RPM and high feeds when drilling or milling. Chip size is critical to prevent melting. Oh and wood drills are more appropriate than metal drills. Rough edges don't weld well ... the idea is to have as little air as possible between the parts when applying solvent. The resulting bond is invisible (the two parts become one!)
I would have never thought of using an oven like that to bend acrylic.....nice dude
So great! Very inspirational, cleared my doubts.
Great video. Have done any work with acrylic tubing or pipe? What I'm wanting to do is form the end of a 4" acrylic tube so it forms an end that looks like the old Christmas bubble lights. That's what I'm making for my display, giant bubble lights, and I don't want the top to be flat and look as much like the real thing as possible. I've been thinking of heating up the end and then rolling it in a felt lined form, so it doesn't scratch, kind of like a glass blower would do, but I'm not sure. Thanks, and keep up the great work.
Great video. Thx
An absolutely priceless video, thankyou, I'm wanting to make using acrylic but I had no idea how, I'm going to experiment with mitre bond or super glue, any suggestions on that. Thanks again.
Martin.
Additional Tip: The acrylic shaving/acrylic power can be added with the glue to attach 2 pieces of acrylic, stronger bond and fills all the gap.
Make sure you use a MAP GAS torch to polish acrylic edged.
Drilling acrylic is a skill in itself! The tip and rake angle need to be adjusted on a standard drill bit or a drill bit pre ground to suit drilling acrylic can be purchased.. The most important thing is to keep the temperature down to stop the cuttings melting to the drill bit with friction. Drilling under running water works great. I use a negative rake tool when turning acrylic in the lathe making handles and knobs etc.
+Andrew Wilson Mineral spirits leave a great finish when drilling.
Drilling acrylic is one of those things that really frustrates people and ruins projects. Just do yourself a favor and buy the purpose made acrylic bits, and only use them on acrylic. (Unless you are a baller and can afford to keep buying more and more acrylic every time you crack holes and have to start the project all over again)
TIP: The old tymer trick is to take your regular drill bit, and blunt the tip into the cement with a couple of hammer strikes. (like it's a chisel) and that blunts the tip to keep the cutting edge of the flutes from grabbing the acrylic and causing micro shattering that results in cracked holes. And if you look closely at a purpose honed acrylic bit, it's at a different angle than a wood or metal drill bit, thus doing the same thing as a blunt tipped bit.
You can also edge polish with just an acrylic wipe. Oh, and laser cut or flame polished edges really don't bond well. It's best to run all your acrylic edges along the router table at 1/32nds of an inch clean up pass right before you glue. Oh, and use the needle bottles... if your edge is freshly routed, and smooth, the acrylic cement #3 will wick right under the seam and leave a clean uniform bonded edge that looks like two pieces of glass that met up perfectly. And if you had enough pressure, and the edges didn't move, there will be no bubbles. If your table isn't perfectly flat, you can shim under your acrylic project glue lines with razor blades until the line wets out evenly with no air lines, gaps or bubbles.
+TheBikerScout Agreed. If you are forced to use regular bits, then drilling at high speed (rpms) melts and softens the brittle plastic a little so it is less likely to crack--if you advance the drill very slowly. The part about using WD40 to reduce heat is better for drilling metals.
Another way to modify a regular drill bit is by making the tip angle much sharper on a grinder. The method described here:
acrylicsbydesign.blogspot.com/2010/10/how-to-modify-metal-working-drill-bit.html
also recommends modifying the cutting thread angle, but I've had good luck just by modifying the tip angle. I just use bits with dull tips that need resharpening and grind down to about a 60 degree angle
Thanks
What is the brand of the "flexible" blue work surface? And where can it be purchased? Thanks
Thanks for the advice and tips!!!
Wow, that music is actually pretty nice!
It's not
Great video and useful tips. keep it up!
Hi, thank you for the tutorial! How would you bend large slabs of acrylic?
A heat gun on a low setting might be able to accomplish this. Having some kind of jig or form to bend the sheet over will be very important to get the shape you want.
Did you have any luck with this?
You guys are making some great videos.
Hi, thanks for the video. I'm planning to make a wall clock but I need a glossy black material from which i can make the outer circle. Can you suggest some material? It should be glossy and doesn't matter if its a fingerprint magnet. I'm quite new to materials but good with electronics.
Any tips for rounding an edge or making an edge curve? What’s best to use?
Here a quick question I'm planning on making a computer case and watched your video and would it be possible to bend the acrylic and use it in place of metal brackets because don't want to use glue
When drilling, wouldn't it be better to use a drill bit without the positive rake, to avoid cracking?
Would it be possible to make a desk with an acrylic top?
+OomegamanoO acrylic is actually too soft for most desk tops and it will become scratched up with use. Unless the desk is a service desk and heavy things are constantly being dropped on it, I usually cover the desks with glass.
I have never had any luck drilling, I always used a pair of vise grip to hold a bolt the size of the hole I wanted and heated the end till it was red and melted the hole. Clean off the melted stuff and you done
Some advice needed my rain visor broke id like 2 join it back as im nt gettin it 2 buy 4 my car wat can i use 2 join it as its clear n like plexiglass
one thing to note about machine cutting/drilling is the bit you are using and the way it cuts, type of flute/direction of cut. when flame polishing sand down the surface/edge from coarse to a fine grain finish with wet sanding 500/1000 and dont over expose the plastic to the flame for more then a second. it can catch fire and you will burn the corners much faster. best to use a mini gas blow torch pen for better handling. worth asking the supplier for scrap to practice on before burning your project first attempt.
So awesome! Thank you.
Terrific tips. Thanks
Yes using a heat gun works great for bending acrylic....and and air nozzle to quickly cool to hold shape desired
Im gonna cover my daughter's dresser with some 4ftx 8ft plastic mirrored sheet that a homeowner gave me. What electric, cordless, or hand tools will i need? i also wanna do a edge for the front panel drawers , please none of that harbor freight stuff i know i probably just use tools this one time and im cool with that. Thanks
Thanks. The music drove me crazy, though.
Hey I am willing to know how we can paint acrylic with translucent paint so the light can pass through it.
A clothes iron and some parchment paper also will make the edges perfect .I was surprised when I tried it.
Many thanks! It target me many things!
great video. thanks for the tips
Superglue (cyanoacrylate - the brands are all basically the same) is actually really good at gluing acrylic together, and it works best with smooth edges/sides.
if you hold a stanley blade in your hand and run that over the edge you can get a very smooth edge fast, but ideally touch it up with emery paper after, it'll give you a perfect square edge over the rounded flame polished crap (can you tell I'm biased yet?)
Is the clear acrylic on the thumbnail and @2:03 .5 inch or .3 inch? what's a fair market price for 48in wide x 36in high of that? and how much would that bend?
really really GREAT video! liked, commented, subscribed
8. Run the edge across a joiner to finish it. 9. If you're doing a lot of bending, uncoil the heating element from an old blow dryer and stake it to a piece of cement board. Place the plexi over (not on) it, holding one side of it up until it softens.
For the glue, get an applicator bottle instead of doing it as shown - it'll make the connection much neater. They're cheap and easy to get on Amazon.
Want to make my next watercooled pc out of acrylic. Any tips?
I have worked a lot with the material (display cases) so no noobie. But I am concerned with its thermal properties and the risk of static.
If I'm planning on cutting my acrylic using the scoring and then hand snapping method, would extruded or cast acrylic be easiest to use? (My hand strength isn't super mighty!)
Sir for backlight what type of acrylic is good?
How can i go about painting it? Any special steps i must take?
Any tips for tapping threads in acrylic?
Nice video....👌👌
Please post more detailed videos showing DIY projects using Acrylic and only tools available at general home only... so that your expertise can be used by normal and general people...please give full details like thickness, dimensions etc. etc. Thanks 👌👌
pity most of the information is wrong, Id do more research before attemping to do any of what they suggest, I was a Platic Fabricator for 15yrs and still do some on the side for little projects and wouldn't do anything the way they say.
matthew roderique sir,
Why don't you post some videos doing simple projects with acrylic.... but with help of simple tools....
Great video! Thanks.
Hello my friend what is the glue name and cost?
What speed setting for drilling?
Great music, and well made vid. Love it
I wish to cut 10mm diameter colored acrylic rods into 50mm lengths in quantity and polish the cut edges. These will be used in jewelry production so a finished look is necessary. A slight bevel would be nice. These could be chucked on a drill press then spun against an abrasive or buffing surface. For instance a sanding/buffing block fixed at an appropriate angle. Some guidance would be greatly appreciated.
how do you remove excess or droplets of weldon 4 from acrylic. Can't seem to find how to clean up that mess?
0:20 what is that material inside holding the 3 screws?
You can also use choloform for fast gluing acrylic
Extruded acrylic is actually better for laser etching. I do it all the time with a 75 watt laser and the etching doesn't show up nearly as well with cast acrylic. Also, you need proper drill bits designed for plastic for thick acrylic or it will crack. Masking tape will do nothing to help. You do not want a rough edge for solvent welding, that's idiotic. The solvent doesn't fill cracks so you want the surfaces to be relatively smooth or else the bond won't be very strong. The bond made in the video is likely very weak.
Cloudkicker ftw!
Thx! I'm going to make an aquarium soon.
What glue was used?
How easy is it to use hole saws on acrylic?
Which cloudkicker song did you use?
Good stuff 👍
Is acrylic glass by standard UV protective? What makes glass UV protectant?
0.21 secs What do you call those corner clamps and anyone who's got a link to it?
It's awesome and practical. However, may I know, where are the 5th tips?
Flame polishing will go much better if you use a draw knive beforehand to remove the sawmarks...
Superb video! Extremely handy tips.
Question: do all those tips work on all kinds of acrylic?
+J Thing All clear plastic is not acrylic, some is polycarbonate which bursts into flame and smokes with a laser.
+Mentorcase I just wondered if all the tips worked on extruded and cast acrylic? But thanks for the heads up. Appreciate it.
I have tried cutting several types of clear plastic I have around all 6mm and it is all polycarbonate and all smokes crazy black soot that covered the inside of my machine and stinks like hell.
Where can you the cutting acrylics??
that flame polish was sooooo good how did you add the bubble effect? i'm being sarcastic by the way !!!!!!!!
can anyone please tell me, the name of the tool??? is there any other tool to polish beside flame polishing?
FYI: Brad point drill bits and forstner bits are ideal for drilling acrylic.
Extruded acrylic will have cracks show up at the cutting edge in laser cutting. It is recommended to use only cast acrylic for laser works
At 21sec what are those corner pieces inside the box called?
which one is the best sheet for lighting cast acrlyc or marga sheet rep me plz
Really good mechine