built up acrylic text

[Peter Normington]

hello bis
perhaps you could describe how you did it and then maybe someone could say where you went wrong

Peter

[Graeme Bissett]

Hi Peter, thanks for the reply.

We cut out 5mm acrylic text on the router just in a block style, nothing fancy along with some strips for the returns.
We managed to glue the returns on the straight parts of letters no problem, it was the curves that caused the problem, I used a blow torch to heat the acrylic, it kind of worked but it was hard to hold the full return in place while trying to glue it & get a nice even join between the edge of the letter. I’ve tried to think of a way of clamping them together while the glue goes off but have had no luck so far.

Any advice would be much appreciated, thanks

[Guy Burt-Davies]

the best way to fabricate the returns for built up acrylic text is to make a softboard template by cutting squares of softboard slightly larger than the letter itself & bonding them together to the thickness you require (the return depth). Then cut the letter out of the softboard using the same router program that you used for the letter faces – thus making a sort of 1 piece jigsaw puzzle.

Warm the cut strips of acrylic that you want to use for the returns using a hot air gun (although an acrylic oven would be better) and then, when they’re warm & floppy – no jokes please messrs fenton & normington – put them into the softboard template & leave them to cool. Once the acrylic has cooled you’re left with pre formed returns that should match your letter faces exactly & be easy enough to bond using tensol cement.

Hopefully this all makes sense but if not then i’ll try posting some photographs of what we do.

Good Luck!

Guy

[Graeme Bissett]

Hi Guy,
thanks for the advice. think i no what you mean, do you think mdf sandwiched together would do the job, if you could post a few pics that would great thanks