Cold Bending Plastic Sheets

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.

Cold bending plastic sheets.

Cold bending some thermoplastic materials can be cold bent without the need to apply heat. You can see this in the fogging of some clear plastics on the outside surface. When a bend is made in sheet metal or plastic the outside of the material structure expands while the inside compresses. All this occurs on a molecular level.

Heat source small projects with bends that are close together will need upon heat source which can be easily aimed at small areas. Alternatively in case you don t want to cold bend polycarbonate sheet apply heat. Well this is the opposite of the cold bending polycarbonate sheet. Depending on the thickness of the material most plastics can be bent in a gradual radius without negatively affecting the integrity of the material.

Some materials can even be cold bent using a press brake the same machine used for bending metal. As could be inferred from its name cold curving is the process of bending the whole polycarbonate. Main techniques of bending polycarbonate sheet 1. Degrade the sheet if the heating cycle is exceeded.

Strip heat bending utilizes infrared elements and may degrade the sheet if heating cycles are exceeded. It is limited to two dimensional forming but is viable for bending sheet thicknesses of up to about two inches. This takes us to another important fabrication process. Even without heating a polycarbonate sheet can be bent.

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. Chemically spectar is similar to the pete used to make disposable drink bottles and is commonly abbreviated as petg. Cold line bending polycarbonate sheet is basically a prelude to fabrication process. Trace the sides of your newly bent piece of acrylic in order to make the side pieces.

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. 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. Tuffak gp polycarbonate sheets may be cold bent with the minimum radius based upon the sheet thickness. As a guideline the material can be radiused to 100 times the thickness.

Hot bending polycarbonate 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. Cut the side pieces out using a dremel saw or razor knife when you are done tracing.