Silver Edged Acrylic

[Jiten Patel]

Hey everyone.

Does anyone know of a technique or material that is clear acrylic with a silver edge? I am assuming painting it, but this would be quite messy with the potential for bleed onto the sheet?

Another thought I had was building a metal frame but do not have the expertise to do this.

Essentially we need to sandwich something between two sheets of clear acrylic and it needs to have a silver edge. Handles will be added to this to create a fancy tray (don't ask, we get some odd requests).

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Joe Hillmann]

The tape used for stained glass may kind of do what you are wanting. If you search for "copper foil tape" it should show up you would then have to tin it with solder to get it silver.

[Mike Null]

Could you glue mirrored acrylic to the edges?

[Jerome Stanek]

go to an auto paint store and see if they have pinstripping

[Dan Hintz]

Do you need the silver pointing away from or into the acrylic's edge?

[David Somers]

Jit,

There is a silver backed foil available in stained glass supplies that might save you some time over the more common Copper foil. It should eliminate the need to tin the whole strip. You would just need to solder the two ends where they meet.

These folks don't actually want real silver do they? Just a silver appearance that won't fail over time?



Dave.

[Mark Senior]

Aluminium Foil Insulation Bright Silver Tape - 99pence on Ebay?

[Mark Sipes]

Does this "something" have thickness to it greater than paper. How thick are your 2 sheets of acrylic. Overall thickness .... Final form .....oval, square, rectangle. Aluminum C channel??

Mark

[Joe Pelonio]

I have done this many times, simply cut metallic silver (sign) vinyl to the right width and wrap it around the edges. If you don't get it perfect, trim off the excess with Olfa knife or razor blade.
Most of the items I did this way were for manufacturing puzzles, where I cut 1/4" strips of black vinyl to tie together the clear 1/8" acrylic "tray" to a solid piece of 1/8 black for the bottom, and even with constant handling they held up great for years.

[Mark E Wilson]

I want to see the finished product. Intrigued by the sandwich of clear and how your are fastening the layers.

[Jiten Patel]

Thanks all for your replies - sorry , I should have been more specific.

They would like this to be a tray - rectangle in size, approx 32cm x 15cm. Two handles will be screwed into the acrylic with this piece of material which has embroidery wedged inbetween the two 3mm clear sheets. The edges need to be seamless or a metal frame. This is for a luxury wedding therefore I need it to look the part (200 of these getting made).

How does the vinyl look when is it put on Joe? Do you have images?

Mike, I initially thought mirrored or silver acrylic stuck to the edges but this may give a rough "amateur" look.

Ideally I think I would need to get some sort of metal frame made that allows bow sheets of acrylic to sit inside it so that it holds everything into place. Something similar to this without the £££ price tag. http://www.frames.uk.com/metal_pictu...re_frames1.htm

[Dave Sheldrake]

LeCira Jit?

http://www.lecira.co.uk/

cheers

Dave

[David Somers]

Jit,

Does the tray have to have a defined lip to keep things on it from rolling/sliding off or does it matter?

Now for a technical question from someone without a laser.
If you were to cut the two pieces of your acrylic sandwich together, would they weld together while still providing a "polished" edge?
I have a feeling from your description that the "embroidery" sandwiched between the sheets might be thick enough to prevent that from working, but was curious. I have never been around someone doing an award with sandwiched acrylic, but they seem to have items sandwiched between two acrylic layers and the sandwich appears to be welded together with a highly polished edge that hides the joint very nicely. Do you know how that is done? Could that be applied here in a way that would work for the trays? And be easy enough to be done on 200 of them economically?

200 of these trays? Eeks. The frames you pictured will be a fair amount of labor and look like, well, picture frames? <grin> Maybe not bad, but not the sort of thing I think of for a "luxury wedding." Though perhaps I am just not envisioning it right?

If you have the time to explore this I might try a test with the silver backed copper foil and see if that looks classy and clean. It would have one seam that would need to be soldered. But done with a little care it should scarcely be noticeable, especially if you place the seam at a handle or other point that would hide it. Just a thought.

You could also do a search on "silver edge banding" in Google, or "decorative silver edge banding". Lots of choices out there ranging from self adhesive to ones that have a decorative filigree on them that would be a bit more formal than a straight band.

Interesting project. Would you mind sharing a photo of the finished project when you get there?

Dave

[Mark E Wilson]

Jump on Alibaba.com. You can probably find the frames. I recently installed a "Gallery" cable system for about $400 that was going to cost me $3,000 in the States. Same exact parts.

[Mike Null]

JIT

Have you considered having a sheet metal shop fabricate and chrome plate them?