Cold Bending Plastic Sheets

This takes us to another important fabrication process.

Cold bending plastic sheets. Tuffak gp polycarbonate sheets may be cold bent with the minimum radius based upon the sheet thickness. Cold forming plexiglas sheet can be cold formed bent at room temperature in a smooth arc and held to a radius by forcing the material into a curved channel support. All this occurs on a molecular level. Cut the side pieces out using a dremel saw or razor knife when you are done tracing.

Main techniques of bending polycarbonate sheet 1. It is limited to two dimensional forming but is viable for bending sheet thicknesses of up to about two inches. A typical forced circulation air oven is shown in figure 1. Depending on the thickness of the material most plastics can be bent in a gradual radius without negatively affecting the integrity of the material.

Even without heating a polycarbonate sheet can be bent. Spectar supposedly looks and handles much like acrylic but with the surprising property that it can be cold formed without breaking or whitening and exhibits a memory effect holding a cold bend until reheated. When a bend is made in sheet metal or plastic the outside of the material structure expands while the inside compresses. Chemically spectar is similar to the pete used to make disposable drink bottles and is commonly abbreviated as petg.

Heat source small projects with bends that are close together will need upon heat source which can be easily aimed at small areas. Strip heat bending utilizes infrared elements and may degrade the sheet if heating cycles are exceeded. The two best tools for this are a small butane torch the type used in the kitchen work well or you can also use an embossing heat tool used by card makers and scrapbookers to melt and apply embossing powders. As could be inferred from its name cold curving is the process of bending the whole polycarbonate.

Degrade the sheet if the heating cycle is exceeded. As a guideline the material can be radiused to 100 times the thickness. However there are a couple of factors to. Well this is the opposite of the cold bending polycarbonate sheet.

To bend sheet plastic and acrylic you will need. You can see this in the fogging of some clear plastics on the outside surface. Alternatively in case you don t want to cold bend polycarbonate sheet apply heat. The recommended radius of curvature should be a value greater than 180 times the thickness of the sheet for plexiglas g sheet and 300 times the thickness for plexiglas mc sheet see table below recommended minimum radii of curvature for cold formed plexiglas sheetnominal sheet thickness recommended.

Lay the bent acrylic on its side on a new piece of flat acrylic and trace the sides using a permanent marker or chinagraph pencil. Cold bending some thermoplastic materials can be cold bent without the need to apply heat. Trace the sides of your newly bent piece of acrylic in order to make the side pieces.