Bent acrylic + edge lighting?

[Jay Selway]

Have any of you tried to take acrylic, engrave / cut it, then heat / bend it? My buddy and I are talking about doing a piece of art that has some curved acrylic, we'd like to edge light.

Anybody ever tried this?

[Michael Hunter]

Yes - it can be done.

If there are cutouts within the piece that will be bent, then you need to think carefully about how to get these to bend at the same rate as the main part.

The piece shown in the photo was bent around a warmed steel tube and wrapped tightly with cloth to hold all the bits in the right place.
This was presented to the Queen of England!

[Clark Pace]

Yes - it can be done.

If there are cutouts within the piece that will be bent, then you need to think carefully about how to get these to bend at the same rate as the main part.

The piece shown in the photo was bent around a warmed steel tube and wrapped tightly with cloth to hold all the bits in the right place.
This was presented to the Queen of England!

My main sales come from a product I make that is laser cut and sometimes engraved then bent.

[Michael Hunter]

Show us a picture then!

[Matt Turner (physics)]

It should work okay as long as your bends are smaller than about 40° (the critical angle for total internal reflection in acrylic). If you need a bigger bend then that and don't want the light escaping at the bend, you'll need the radius of the bend to be at least a few times bigger than the thickness of the material. Some of the light will come out at any sharp bend due to the divergence of the light.

[Clark Pace]

It should work okay as long as your bends are smaller than about 40° (the critical angle for total internal reflection in acrylic). If you need a bigger bend then that and don't want the light escaping at the bend, you'll need the radius of the bend to be at least a few times bigger than the thickness of the material. Some of the light will come out at any sharp bend due to the divergence of the light.


I've done ghe engrave and bend, but have not lit it up. One questions. Will the bent part be visible? Reason I ask is if it's not then I would place a reflective material on the back side to direct the light. Does that make sense?

[Jay Selway]

Yes - it can be done.

If there are cutouts within the piece that will be bent, then you need to think carefully about how to get these to bend at the same rate as the main part.

The piece shown in the photo was bent around a warmed steel tube and wrapped tightly with cloth to hold all the bits in the right place.
This was presented to the Queen of England!

That's really cool looking.

Was it edge lit?

[Jay Selway]

I've done ghe engrave and bend, but have not lit it up. One questions. Will the bent part be visible? Reason I ask is if it's not then I would place a reflective material on the back side to direct the light. Does that make sense?

Yes, it'll be visible.

I'm making 3d graffiti / lettering.

[Keith Colson]

This is why I modified my laser to cut at 45 degrees, so I can turn light around corners.

It will be interesting to see what you come up with. I do like seeing edge light experiments. This is my current experiment (without any 45 degree stuff)

300893

Cheers
Keith

[David Somers]

Very cool effect Keith!!

Dave

[abby ZHANG]

Hi Jay

there is acrylic bending machine special for bending acrylic

[Jay Selway]

Hi Jay

there is acrylic bending machine special for bending acrylic

Do you have a link you could share?

[Jay Selway]

This is why I modified my laser to cut at 45 degrees, so I can turn light around corners.

It will be interesting to see what you come up with. I do like seeing edge light experiments. This is my current experiment (without any 45 degree stuff)

300893

Cheers
Keith

How'd you modify your laser to do that? sounds interesting.

[Keith Colson]

Jay you can see the thread here (http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?222776-Cutting-sheet-at-45-degrees-Fixture/page2), it is still work in progress. It turns led light 90 degrees really well.

300917

I read somewhere you can use hair straighteners to bend acrylic. Apparently you can add teflon tape so it does not stick.

Cheers
Keith