Laser cut acrylic to make it flexible!

[Sean Coyne]

Heyo creekers...

In my online exploratory searches, I have seen people use a "grate" pattern to vector cut sheets wood with the hope that the pattern would make the wood flexible. I have seen several clever applications for this and until recently wondered if it would work with a sheet of acrylic . IT DID!

And beautifully too! Attached are pics of my results. The clear piece of acrylic is 0.1 in thick.

After confirming it worked I created a box using the "grated" acrylic as a sliding, flexing door. Its a little buggy and isnt the strongest thing on the block but who cares when you consider last week this would have been a near impossible task.

Just thought I would share my findings with the community.

[Jason Hilton]

I love living hinges! Nice work!

[Sean Coyne]

Living hinges, hmmmm I didn't know it was called that. Thanks

[David Somers]

Sean,

Just curious what you mean when you say it is a little buggy? Sticky? Pops out of the track? If yes, would a little lubricant like a powdered silicon help? (Elmers actually makes one that works nicely for a plastic on plastic runner.)

Fun idea. It hadn't occurred to me to do that with anything but wood! Good thinking!!!!

[Sean Coyne]

David,

The edges catch on the smallest seams of the track. It also has a springy quality that inhibits pulling the door past the blockage, without breaking it.

Also when cutting the pattern, the acrylic would warp and distort the overall sheet. To combat this, I broke the pattern up when engraving. I chose random(ish) parts of the living hinge vector file and gave them different colored strokes. I would run one color and give the acrylic time to cool then run the next color.

Beside those few things, its easy to work with and fun to just play around with.

[Dan Hintz]

Living hinges, hmmmm I didn't know it was called that. Thanks

Live hinge, not "living", if you want to be proper (just as you should say "Canada Geese" when seeing multiples, not "Canadian Geese"), despite what some websites out there say. And if you want to take it a step farther, "live hinge" really refers to areas of plastic that have been physically modified (either via mold design or post-processing with stamps) to orient their molecules in a particular manner to give it flexibility and resilience to flexing. Truthfully, these should not be called "live hinges", again despite what some webpages are calling it.

Now you know... :p

[Keith Upton]

And a cat was not called a cat, until everyone started calling it that! lol

[Jason Hilton]

I've always heard it called a "living hinge" regardless of the medium. I've made lamps and boxes and stuff like that from wood and acrylic.

[Chuck Stone]

ok .. maybe we call it a torsion spring?
I've done it in acrylic and it works right away.. but not for long.
It seems to get more brittle after a while.

[Dan Hintz]

I've done it in acrylic and it works right away.. but not for long. It seems to get more brittle after a while.

Exactly, which is why this is not a true live hinge. The molecules have not been properly oriented, the surrounding material has just been removed, making it more flexible (just like using a really thin piece of acrylic).