Diy Plastic Sheet Bender

Tutorial for how to.

Diy plastic sheet bender.

How does it work. As the wire is not electrically insulated i don t want any voltage above 12v or 24v. Use long thin 1 inch or so in width test strips to practice your technique and learn how your particular heat source affects your chosen thickness of plastic. Cool vid from our pals at tap plastics showing how to build a strip heater which is commonly referred to as a plastic bender but really doesn t do any bending in and of itself.

These benders are compatible with plastics such as acrylic polyethylene polypropylene polycarbonate pvc cpvc abs and kydex. To set up your plastic or acrylic sheet to bend simple curves for your miniature and model projects you need to first remove the protective covering from the material you wish to bend. Adding aluminium and tin cover. I went on a mission to confirm if i could bend plastics such as plexiglass or lexan with any precision of accuracy.

I went forward and built a crude machine. It s just a long skinny heating element that makes it easy to soften a sheet of plastic along a straight line so you can bend it with your hands to an arbitrary angle and or against a jig for more precise control. All thermoplastics go through two distinct phases as they are heated. Diy low cost hot wire plastic sheet bending tool step 1.

I had few left over particle board chip board pieces i managed to find 3. Place a sheet between the heating bars to soften it. Use wood or metal supports not included under the sheet during heating. Ideal for perspex acrylic plexiglass polycarbonate.

Bending shaping plastic with hot air gun heat gun. Preparing hot air gun w. Sheet benders for plastic. Set up plastic or acrylic sheet in a simple bending jig.

Heating time varies between 30 seconds and 12 minutes based on material type and thickness.