PDA

View Full Version : Making an acrylic display case w/ bent corners?



Amy Shelton
01-20-2011, 4:55 PM
This is not something we are set up to do.

A <potential> customer used to live in FL and get his custom display boxes there, for $10 each.
He wants to get them here locally. I know I can cut the acrylic for him, but we don't have
an acrylic bender, and even if we did, I don't know if we can get the bends perfect enough
to make a quality box for him.

He wants the top and two sides out of the same piece of acrylic, it will have two bends. 6" high, about 4"x4" for the base. Two sides will have curves at the top. No finger-joint/tabs. It rests on the base. 1/8" thick acrylic.

My three options are...

1. Is someone here interested in making these for him? He said he wants it done nearby, so he could come pick them up. I think he said 20-30 cases each order. He also wants some that hang on a wall. He is willing to drive 2 hours from zip 37660 (Kingsport TN) for the pick-up.

2. Is this something we can do? I tried bending some black acrylic in the oven as a bracelet (like Jackie McGowan's film strip bracelet) and um, it wasn't so easy. I think $10 each may not be enough with the time involved.

3. Are these available online? He said he looked and he can't find the quality that he needs. I think the bent corners are important to him.

I attached a CDR sketch of the general idea, without the base.

Dan Hintz
01-20-2011, 5:12 PM
Some may be set up to do this quickly, but I cannot imagine making much money at $10/each, myself. There's a profit, but not enough to make it worth my while. I guess about 10 minutes per box to cut, bend, and glue... add in cost of materials and you're below the magic $1/minute threshold (at least for me).

Amy Shelton
01-20-2011, 5:52 PM
That's what we were thinking, Dan. Even producing a large quantity, there's still a lot of work to assembling them.
But I might make a tabbed-joint acrylic box as a display (pun intended) and he can come by and look at it. If he doesn't like it, it's here as a sample.

David Epperson
01-20-2011, 6:17 PM
I did a bit of that type of thing with acrylic Plexiglas back in my college days. We just let the material soak in the oven and drape over a form and then final form fit and allow to cool. We didn't try to do a localized heat bend, but rather soaked the entire piece. I worked pieces up to 1.5" cubes that way. The acrylic got pretty pliable while hot. You might be able to make several forms to heat the boxes in batches if your oven is large enough.

Larry Bratton
01-20-2011, 6:28 PM
Amy, is the box just 4 sides? Top and sides bent and then glue it to a base? I have a bender and am in Alabama. I don't know about the pickup but I could ship them via UPS. What is the exact size? I would have some interest in this.

Robert Walters
01-20-2011, 8:00 PM
On this page:

http://www.tapplastics.com/info/video.php


Look at these videos:


How to build a Plastic Heat Bender
How to bend Plastic
How to glue Acrylic
How to build a Box with Plastic
How to Polish and Shape Plastic Edges
How to polish and repair Scratched Plastic

Amy Shelton
01-21-2011, 3:04 PM
Thanks for all the replies!

Larry, I sent you a PM. And there are six sides, but three of the sides are the same piece, bent twice. The base has two pieces glued together, one is smaller to fit in the upper part of the case. The top just rests on the base, not glued.

This might be something we'd like to get into one day, but right now, we're so busy with other things, we can't devote the time to work in a learning curve.

Robert, we had already watched the top two of those videos on Youtube. We even pondered making the base with the element in a U shape, to make both of the bends at the same time. I didn't even consider that we would need a flame polisher for the edges.

Larry Bratton
01-21-2011, 5:46 PM
Amy,
Sent reply via e-mail and the PM.

Dan Hintz
01-21-2011, 8:53 PM
Amy,

If the acrylic is really thin (say, 1/16"), you'll probably get a pretty good edge just with the laser... it would be better with a flame polisher, but it would slow things down, possibly unnecessarily.