where can I get an acrylic bender?

[Dave & Rob Lowery]

These are the people.

http://www.crclarke.co.uk

Know the names of a few benders as well 😀

[Checkers]

If you’re only using it a few bends per month, or not looking for professional grade, you can make your own using heat tape (a flexible electric tape used to defrost frozen pipes) and some MDO.
Here’s a rough drawing…

It may not be as efficient as the professional models, but it does work quite well.

Checkers
a.k.a. Brian Born
Harrisburg, PA USA

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[David Rowland]

please note, we are 240volt and not 110volt if checkers design is more suited for usa.

[Robert Lambie]

checkers, i had a couple of these heating strips a while back mate… "they did work" but i found they took a long time to get the heat to the required temp. or should i say the perspex before it began to bend.
do you get various temps of this type of tape? (maybe that’s where we went wrong)
the ones we used were about 3/4 wide flat rubber that tapered out to a wire with a plug on the end. is this similar to what you use mate?

i havent actually used these strips for years, just curious to know if we are talking about same thing. 😀

[Rodney Gold]

To do 1000mm bends properly , you will have to get a decent machine , the CR Clarke ones are good , its a wire bender and they are by far the best compared to anything else. You could build your own using nichrome resistance wire , but it wont be that cheap

[Alan Wharton]

Iv had 1 of these for years mainly for steel sheet work but used it also to bend acrylic useing a heat gun to warm the bend area works great 😉 http://www.machinemart.co.uk/product.as … 2044&g=106

[Checkers]

Hi Guys,
The heat tape I used was 110 volt and it warmed up 1/8" acrylic pretty quickly. I’d say within a 10 minutes of plugging it in, the tape was up to temperature. And, it only took a few minutes to heat up the material so could be formed. Thicker material would take significantly longer and require a lot of effort to get right.
I tried searching online for what looked similar to the tape I used, but I didn’t find anything. However, I did find some interesting info here…
http://www.tapplastics.com/info/video.php?
About 7 videos down, they’ll show you how to make your own plastic bender. The next video will show you how to bend plastic efficiently.

Cheers,

Checkers
a.k.a. Brian Born
Harrisburg, PA USA