Cold Bending Acrylic Sheet

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.

Cold bending acrylic sheet.

In the image above the values are all in inches but the principle often holds even if the units are in mm. It is given by multiplying the thickness of the sheet by 100 i e. Forming but is viable for bending sheet thicknesses of up to about two inches. 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.

Be sure that the marked line is above the heating element. Plexiglas sheet cold forming. Set the sheet of acrylic across the rests on the strip heater and turn it on. Turn the sheet of acrylic over on the heating element every 30 60 seconds in order to avoid damaging it.

22 cold forming 22 strip heat bending 23 drape forming 23 three dimensional forming. Wear gloves as you do this to avoid burning your hands. 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.

To bend sheet plastic and acrylic you will need. Minimum cold forming radius sheet thickness x 100. This radius is applied in all cold bending procedures. 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.