Bending Acrylic On A Sidebender Part 1

Sidebending an Acrylic / Plexi side. Part 1/2

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Luthier
• Guitar Building

[chrispaulick]

There are some imperfections in those sides. Some imprints of the blanket and some tapering of the end from the clamp. But keep in mind this was the first time I ever tried it. Probably should have not let it get as hot as it did and turned off the blanket when it started to bend. I think the blanket is something like 5 watts a sq. inch. It gets pretty hot pretty fast actually. You will just have to experiment with it on your own like I did. It worked for my purpose even with the imperfections.

[edadmartin]

hi you may have answered this ,but did you make the temp controler or buy the expensive LMI unit thanks greg

[chrispaulick]

@edadmartin I made my own temp. control from a 1 hour wall light timer and a harbor freight router speed control and a wire mold box mounted to a stand. Might be around $40. Depends on whether you get the speed control on sale or not.

[JustWonderingHowToDo]

Did you make that bendingmachine yourself? Looks great.

[chrispaulick]

Yes, It's a take off of the Fox bender. The waist press is removable for storage.

[gunsofmemorialpark]

Would this work with acrylic mirror? Or would it damage it?

[chrispaulick]

I have no idea. You would have to test it yourself.

[billsmalibu]

I like the idea of a mold but how do you not get imperfections in the warm plastic? It looks like you left the protective paper on the acrylic. Is that all you need between the acrylic and the heating blanket? Also I checked out omegas website for the heating blankets. Which model did you use. Do you really need such a low wattage? Yours took a long time to warm the acrylic. A higher wattage would speed up the process but would it burn the plastic from heating up too fast?

[iscareuiknowit]

I've been bouncing the idea of making a plexiglas guitar in my head for a while, but I've never figured out a way to bend the sides. This looks perfect, but I don't have the money to build myself a bender like that seeing at i only want to build one guitar. any chance, I could order 2 sides made from you?

[1foxtrot70]

@chrispaulick I think if the blanket were positioned on the non-mirrored side, the mirror would reflect heat and warm the plastic as if the plastic were sandwiched between two heat blankets. Same cautions would apply if using two blankets..