bending pocket badges

[Paul Brinkmeyer]

I have a strip heater, I have Rowmark bendable plastic, and I have a customer that wants badges bent to go over the pocket.
What I need is some hints on the best way to do this.
Do you bend it around a rod or form?
Do you laser all the info on it then bend?
(For tents, I bend first then laser, this alows me to get them all the exact same height.)

Thanks.

[Larry Bratton]

Paul:
I have a bender and have bent a good bit of acrylic. Definitely engrave it first. If I am bending, say, 1/4" (which works best for me) I kiss cut a score line where I want it to bend. Now if your doing small pieces of thin plastic, your out of my realm. I would imagine thin and small would be hard to do, where you have a very short bend.

I'm sure it can be done though with proper technique. I'm sure my learned associates here at the creek will chime in with more good advice. Good luck.

[Larry Alles]

Paul,

For 1/16" material just put the material over the heating rod but do not let it touch it. When the material is ready for bending, it will first raise a little on each side of the heating rod, then flatten out. When it flattens out the material will bend easily. Hold it in place until it cools a bit and does not try to return to the original shape.

Larry

[Richard Rumancik]

The score line may be fine for thicker material but there's a good chance that with thin material (less than .062 say) that you may introduce a stress concentration and could find that a lot of pieces break on the line. Be sure to test first . . .

[Larry Bratton]

The score line may be fine for thicker material but there's a good chance that with thin material (less than .062 say) that you may introduce a stress concentration and could find that a lot of pieces break on the line. Be sure to test first . . .
Like I said..1/4" is where I use that.