Acrylic Issue

[Scott Challoner]

I engraved these for a customer a few months ago. They got the box out of their warehouse the other day, and this is what the remaining pieces looked like. I still have a lot of scrap left from when I originally ran the job and it all looks fine. I'm trying to get some more details from the customer, but i have a feeling they were rubbing together while they drove to trade shows. I will probably replace them, but I don't want it to happen again. I will probably leave the mask on one side if I do them again. Any thoughts on what might have caused this?

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[Dan Hintz]

Pic 3 makes it look more like mold than rubbing damage...

[Bren Kano]

They are abrasions from rubbing up against another surface. I once ordered an acrylic aquarium that was shipped in a cardboard box and upon removing the aquarium abrasions were present wherever the cardboard came in contact.

[Joe Pelonio]

I have never seen rubbing do that, looks to me more like some solvent-based liquid, perhaps used for cleaning damaged them. Didi you clean them, and perhaps they were not dry when packed (or maybe they did it?)

[Lee DeRaud]

Residual adhesive from the masking material attracted abrasive grit to those areas maybe?
But Joe's theory sounds more likely.

[Doug Griffith]

I agree with Joe and think it's residual solvent.

[Bren Kano]

Best closeup I could get. Mind you the scratches were not there when I first got it and it's been used as a storage container for over 10 years. Hard to rule out chemical damage though.

http://i743.photobucket.com/albums/xx75/BrenKano/DSC00034.jpg

[John Noell]

How deep are the blemishes? Are they easily polished out or deeper? Is is strictly into the acrylic or is there surface material? I've seen some similar looking things here in the tropics where we get fungal growth on things you would not believe.

[Joe Pelonio]

With that closeup it may just be movement between the pieces, they should be individually wrapped in paper towels, or else what I do with large production jobs is leave the paper on one side and wrap piles of them in stretch wrap. They cannot move then. You can't imagine how UPS may handle things.


$7 at Walmart

[Scott Challoner]

Thanks for all the replies. Sorry it took awhile to get back.
They aren't easily cleaned. At least not with Novus 1 and I would almost rather remake them than clean them. There were originally 600 of them and it looks like there are at least half of them left. Abrasion seems the most likely culprit, but you would think scratches would be more linear. The marks almost look like little balls of fuzz. I can't remember if I wiped them down or not. If I did I would have used DNA or Novus 1. I would think solvent would cause more crazing on the edges. There are no cracks on the edges, only on the flat parts. I wonder if there was some dust left from engraving and like Lee said, it stuck to masking residue and vibrations caused it. I'm still waiting to hear from the customer on how they were transported. I delivered them, but then they drove to shows with them. If I remake them, I will leave the mask on one side or stretch wrap them together to reduce movement. Probably both.
Thanks again.

[Rodne Gold]

Very odd - it takes a lot of mechanical movement to scratch pex that badly - 1st pic looks like it could be a vapour deposit when using superglue?

[andrew zen]

I had same type of pattern when I wiped on "Goof Off" to clean a panel.

I still have that panel to warn me not to do that again.

Of course, I have another panel to remind me to look at the first.

[Mike Null]

Andrew

You may have the solution. That looks exactly like my microwave oven door after I applied orange clean.:(

[Scott Challoner]

They were putting little rubber bumpers on the bottom of them and I had thought that maybe they had glue residue on their fingers that was getting on the parts, but even the ones they hadn't touched had the marks. These were for a quilt shop, so I doubt they have much in the line of solvents laying around. I think I'm going to cut up some scrap pieces and stack them up with various glues and things to see if I can simulate the problem. Hopefully, I'll get a little more insight from the customer as far as where they have been and how they were handled.

[Dan Hintz]

I'm not sure it takes a lot of movement so much as a lot of pressure. How many of these things do you have stacked on top of each other? All it takes is a bit of fine grit to get in there, then roll/shake the box a few times with the weight of 20 pounds of acrylic smashing grit between panels. Moving it from one side of a room to the other while changing the side it sits on a couple of times would be enough to scratch it up.

[Lee DeRaud]

These were for a quilt shop, so I doubt they have much in the line of solvents laying around.Don't write off that possibility yet. A quilter I know uses some really nasty spray fabric glue to tack the batting to the sewn-up panels...

[Joe Pelonio]

Don't write off that possibility yet. A quilter I know uses some really nasty spray fabric glue to tack the batting to the sewn-up panels...
As does my wife, a quilter. Funny thing is, when I first saw this shipping problem it was with large orders of quilting templates.