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Last Updated: , Created: Sunday, January 14th, 2001

How do you bend Plexiglass?

Elizabeth from Windsor, Ontario wants to bend some plexiglass. How does she do it? With heat. The pros have special heat cables and knives to deliver just the right heat at the right spot for slow bends, or sharp 90 degree or even 180 degree bends.

For amateur work where you don't want to spend a fortune, use wood clamps or just pieces of plywood to shelter the part of the Plexiglass that you don?t want to bend. Then blow hot air from a heat gun on to the plastic -- it will change colour a bit. If you get it just barely hot you will feel the flexibility increase and you can move slowly to the new shape. If you get it quite hot, it will almost fall over on its own -- perhaps too far. The haze will go away when it cools.


Keywords: Plastic, Techniques

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