Bending Acrylic?

[Gatorbait]

Anybody out there have any experience bending acrylic? I'm thinking of building my own nano tank and would rather have one seamless piece for the front and sides than to have to weld four sheets. I have a little experience working with acrylic and weldon from overflows and sumps and would like to try this next. Any info or know of any web sites out there that could help me?

[Geoff]

i have bent acrylic, but not for anything that needed to be looked through or structually sound. i used an industrial heat gun and carefully heated the acrylic where i wanted it bent then pressed it over a form. it worked pretty well. difficult to keep from bubbling though.

i am sure there is a proper way to do this though.

G~

[kayaker97321]

If you want it to look good and bend even you need one of these.


http://www.tapplastics.com/shop/product.php?pid=169&

Tyler

[RobinsonFam1]

yes i have done it many times like Geoff. i have used a heat gun and made a form and went to town. the biggest worry is to keep the bend square so it wont twist and be out of square. that is where the form comes handy. once i get it bent i clamp it and slowly let it cool or spray it with water that is atleast room temp so it does not cause the acrylic to crack.
practice before the final peice.
HTH
BR

[sausageman]

Just like robinson said, the hardest part of bending acrylic is keeping it from twisting. I built an overflow with a blow torch and some acrylic, and it all worked out good, but it didnt go together quite nicely because of twisting. Next time I plan to make more jigs and such to help me form it


oh btw, I heard using heat strips are good, its like a long piece of tape that heats and makes it easy to bend, never used one, but i believe it would be easier then a blow torch or heat gun. practice a few times, i got lucky and did not get any bubbles my first time.

[Gatorbait]

Thanks for all the help and info. I plan on making a small jig tonight and trying it out sometime this week. I'm planning on building a surface skimmer box for my skimmer. It's an excalibur hang on with a MJ1200. It works great but just doesn't clean off the surface so I figured this would be a good practice project. If it turns out ok I might try some small tanks next (Betta size). Thanks again.

[Geoff]

for some real small stuff. i have also heard of using the oven to soften the acrylic for bending.

G~

[RobinsonFam1]

just be careful you dont overheat it. that stuff has a toxic smell if you burn it. trust me on this one! got a little aggressive with a double bend one time.