Bending Acrylic Sheet In Oven

Deforming acrylic with a convection oven.

Bending acrylic sheet in oven.

Be sure that the marked line is above the heating element. Place the acrylic in the oven during preheating and allow it to heat gradually. It is then held in place until it cools down. It can also shorten the time required to transport the heated sheet from the oven to the forming equipment thus minimizing the possibility of cold forming.

Also called oven forming in this technique the sheet is heated to its forming temperature in an oven and then placed over the mold. Smaller acrylic sheets can also be softened and deformed using a convection oven. To guard against cracking place the acrylic on a flat sheet of glass in a shop oven not the one in your kitchen at about 180ºf 82ºc for about 1 hour per mm thickness then let them air cool. The only major variable that can affect the forming process is the thickness of the plastic sheet.

Acrylic sheets in heating ovens. 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. This article uses a sheet about 1 4 thick so all times are about 10 to 15 minutes per step. Note that the minimum radius of the bend you create is 180 times the thickness of the plexiglass sheet.

I can t recommend for. Modify the timing as necessary. A mold any object shape you can press the acrylic into to give it shape mallet and or a peen for shaping caution i ve only tried this in an electric oven. This device can reduce appreciably the labor required for clamping and unclamping sheets preparatory to forming.

Force the plexiglass into the desired shape. Use long thin 1 inch or so in width test strips to practice your technique and learn how your. Wear gloves as you do this to avoid burning your hands. Attempting to create a smaller radius would snap the sheet.

Turn the sheet of acrylic over on the heating element every 30 60 seconds in order to avoid damaging it. For instance the smallest complete circle you could form with a sheet of plexiglass 1 32 inch thick would have a radius of 5 6 inches. Set the sheet of acrylic across the rests on the strip heater and turn it on. Using solvent based glues on laser cut extruded acrylic can cause cracking due to the internal stresses from temperature differences in the acrylic.

Never place the acrylic sheet on a grid but on a flat heat resistant plate or tray. For thicker sheets it will take longer and for thinner sheets it will take less time.