routine visitor [RoadWarrior222] has viewed as we’ve featured a number of jobs that show exactly how to bend acrylic. however so far he hasn’t seen us cover his preferred method established by [Dale A. Heatherington] which utilizes a hot cable developing tool to make accurate bends. The tool is easy to utilize plus it’s inexpensive as well as simple to build. It’s a fantastic option if you don’t have a warm gun, as well as it may be possible to make cleaner bends than other techniques.
The company end of the bending tool is the red-hot Nichrome cable running with the aluminum channel. That channel is utilized to safeguard the MDF as well as act as a spacer to ensure that the cable doesn’t touch the acrylic. On the near side the cable is anchored with a screw, however on the far end it is kept taught by including a spring. The cable heats up as it is linked to a 12V battery, however because the heating is cause by the wire’s resistance it will only get red-hot in between the alligator clips offering power. To make sure your bends will be perpendicular to the edge of the acrylic there’s an aluminum guide strip on one side of the MDF platform.
You can salvage Nichrome cable from an old hair dryer. If you have any type of left over it’s fantastic for other jobs like building a CNC hot-wire cutter.