Curved Perspex Fabrication

[RobertLambie]

Bending acrylic is simple enough with heat. but matching the curve is the tricky part as you need to get the acrylic to be bent at exactly the desired shape. So depending on how the supplier does it, they may need a template or jig to work to.
Because you just need one single small piece, I imagine this is why it is costly.

Try it yourself. I think you will need a cast acrylic but if you have any bits of acrylic lying around you could give it a go as a trial. worth a shot?

You can heat acrylic with a heat gun but I don’t think you will get a consistent heat for this type of bend.
If you do use a heat gun, make sure you are keeping the gun-waving side to side and heating the full area. if you slow down the waving or pause too long you will get little bubbles appearing.
Alternatively, try heating it in an oven and you will get a better consistent even heat.
you will then need to lift it out and bend it to the shape, this will be a tricky part as it may be floppy and will be hot! plus, you need a shape/template to bend it to.
the best way I can think of doing it totally DIY. would be cutting a bit of wood or MDF to the template/shape. lift the warm soft acrylic and sit it on the template/jig and it will take the shape and leave to cool.

If it has to be exact, you are better just getting a supplier to do it for you and charge the customer accordingly because the customer will be faced with the same task and prices you are, if they bypass you.

[Mark Johnston]

we have folded acrylic using a couple of clamps to hold it in place because it gets hot and heat it with a heat gun.

we cut a piece of card to the angle we want and held it to the side so that we bent them all at the same angle.

this wasn’t curved like that though. this was for small desktop signs but worked well.

[Peter Cassidy]

i have used a heat gun in the past but i have never thought about the oven method and we have an old one in the shed! just out of curiosity, i may give this a go and see what happens. 👍