Bending perspex/plastic

Hi

I want to buy a clear strip of thick plastic/perspex, roughly 10cm wide and

165cm long and I want it bent at 90 degrees down the middle along its entire length. I have heard that I can find this in B&Q, don't know who could bend it for me. Do B&Q/Homebase etc do something like this? Any ideas what other shops might be able to supply and/or bend the plastic for me? For specific shop recommendations, I'm in London but can travel reasonable distances to find it.

Thanks for any tips you can offer...

Cheers, Ben

Reply to
Ben C
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Hi Ben

You don't say how thick the Perspex is; this may have an impact on the bending method. Say under 10mm thick you can use a line bender (sometimes referred to as a strip heater) - the Perspex is heated along the 'bend line' & then bent around a jig or former to the correct angle, held in place to cool. Thicker than 10mm then use an oven (a domestic oven on low heat will work but do a test piece first) to heat the Perspex - the problem with this method is that the whole of the sheet becomes floppy and therefore difficult to handle. Both methods require the jig/former to have a smooth surface otherwise imperfections will be transferred onto Perspex. Where to access a line bender? Your local secondary school (Technology Dept) will have one and I'm sure they would be more than willing to help you with a job that'll only take 10 minutes. Trouble is you'll have to wait 'till beginning of September when they come back from their hols.

Best of luck

Paul

Reply to
Paul Hewish

I suspect at 165cm in length, it is going to be fun finding an oven to use for this approach!

Take Care, Gnube {too thick for linux}

Reply to
Gnube

Got a hot air gun? If not, pick one up (£15). Support the perspex, and position the air gun underneath, about a foot away. Set it on low setting, and wait. In about 10 minutes, it'll be soft enough to bend. Bend it over a former of some sort (table top works well).

Reply to
Grunff

In article , Ben C writes

If you can make it up to Cambridge we're blessed with Cambridge design and plastics in cherryhinton high st.

They seem to have every plastic that's in use and seemingly do all manner of things with it. Bending u can do at home with differing degrees of success and heat!, but there are machines which they have which make a very good job of this sort of thing...

Course they have a website and here it is,

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Reply to
tony sayer

When I was young (teenager) I managed to successfully bend a piece of perspex to make a new lid for my record player. I clamped it between two pieces of wood then poured boiling water over the section I wanted to bend - it worked quite well.

However I suspect that I was lucky to be using perspex which had a low enough melting point.

Andrew

Do you need a handyman service? Check out our web site at

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Reply to
Andrew McKay

Thanks for all your tips. This is clearly a lot harder than I'd figured. I think I'm going to look for a long plastic/perspex tube and cut a quarter section out of it instead. This should give me the same end solution, although it's obviously dependent on successfully finding the tube in the first place! Trying to build my own extra long heater etc just for this one-off job is just as hard as my original problem, and probably worthy of a message thread in itself...

Cheers for all the advice. Maybe I'll move to Cambridge! Ben

Reply to
Ben C

Ben if you don't really fancy having a go at building a bender (I've just posted a 'how to' guide for you elsewhere) then acrylic tube is readily available in lots of common diameters, from 6mmO/D(4mmI/D) up to

100mmO/D(94mmI/D), and even bigger if you want (& in colours even fluorescent!). Have you thought of fabricating your 'bend' from 2 strips of acrylic by bonding with a solvent adhesive (Tensol No12 or Tensol No70) - you'll not see the join if proper care is taken. All this stuff can be got (ask for their catalogue) from K&M's, in Sheffield, tel: 0114 247 4733

You don't say what you are trying to make - post it as there may be alternatives.

Reply to
Paul Hewish

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