How to "flatten" plastics in Oven?

[John Brandson]

The plastics on my machine are pretty toasted. I wish someone made a
complete repro set for the original high speed.

Most of my plastics are just warped badly.

Has anyone stuck their plastics in the oven, heated them a bit, then tried
to flatten them out?

John

[Kansas Pinball]

I just did this the other day with all the plastics from a Mati Hari.
It worked fantastic! You put them in the oven set on bake at 450
degrees on a flat cookie sheet. I actually used one of those clay pizza
Pampered Chef things that I "borrowed" from my wife. I sat in front of
the oven watching through the glass window. Slowly but surely, the
plastic will heat up and you will start to see the plastic slowly start
to flatten out due to gravity. As soon as it gets to a point where
they are starting to droop, pull them out and put them on a flat
surface (I used the counter top) and put heavy objects on them and let
them cool. The Mati Hari plastics came out absolutely flat and
maintained their shape.

Doug

[DWGoett]

i've had much better luck with a heat gun [like sold at stores like
michael's]. heat them up until they are pliable and press them between 2
pieces of glass with weight on top until they cool.
just don't heat them too much cause they WILL melt and bubble if you give
them too much heat.

Dan

"John Brandson" <jbra...@jhilb.com> wrote in message
news:Xns95C16B44915B...@216.148.227.77...

[Mike Schudel]

That would scare me to do it this way. Isn't that how they make
"shrinky-dinks"? Not saying it doesn't work, just sounds like a catastrophe
waiting to happen.

I use the micro torch I have to flame polish ramps and gently heat the
plastic until I see it start to move. I then slightly bend it in the
opposite direction until it cools. Works great, but you better know what
you are doing...just like flame polishing ramps...try it on junk plastic
first.

--
Mike S.
Kalamazoo, MI

WCS Owner's List: http://tinyurl.com/39cjo
Gameroom: http://tinyurl.com/dcu4
MB Scoop Repair: http://tinyurl.com/9lfu
--------------------------------------------

[Ceegary]

I've done many this way, except I set the oven at 250. Most important point
is not to forget about them but pull them when they droop. As a caution
place between two sheets of white paper when you weight them down so as not
to imbed any dirt of print on them.

GRY

"Kansas Pinball" <cyber...@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:1103215237....@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...

[Google]

In article <Xns95C16B44915B...@216.148.227.77>, John Brandson
says...

Google is your friend.

[Kansas Pinball]

I was also a little reluctant but as another poster pointed out, keep
your eye on them. If you catch them as they are starting to droop, then
they have just reached their semi-melting point. Plenty of time to pull
them out. It was also mentioned that putting the pieces between two
pages of white paper would keep dirt from being embedded into the soft
plastic. Good suggestion.

Of interest to me was the fact that the art was not affected at all.
Just heated up, drooped, pulled and flattened.

Doug

[John Brandson]

That's awesome. I'm gonna give it a try then.

John

"Kansas Pinball" <cyber...@comcast.net> wrote in

news:1103215237....@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com:

[kirb]

I use a camp/tent heater. It's a coleman black max with a wide heater
area. I put on a pair of leather gloves, stand the heater on end, and
hold the plastic over the heater while moving back and forth while
filpping once in awhile. As the plastic softens, I stick it under a
wood cutting board with some heavy books on it. Let it cool for an
hour.

Just did a Target Alpha and it looks fantastic. I've bent many back
this way and it works fantastic.

You can use an ELECTRIC stove as well, but gas stoves are a little to
uneven heat without some sort of buffer between the plastic and the
flame (fry pan buffer, maybe?).

Kirb

[LouiSurfer]

shrinky dinks, now that is something I haven't heard of in a Loooong
while.

L.

[Bob Stemmler]

The oven method has always worked great for me. Set oven at 325
degrees. I have a piece of 3/4" plywood that is used as a base, with a
piece of paper laying on top of the plywood, then the plastics on top
of the paper. I don't want to have any texture or dirt to be pressed
into the plastics. As others have said, lay them flat, turn on the oven
light and WATCH them. You can see them start to soften up and begin to
lay flat. You can see when they have had enough heat to be flexible
enough to take them out of the over, you will know when it is time.
When I take them out, I lay a second piece of paper over them, then a
second piece of plywood on top of that, then a couple of books, or
whatever I have. Only takes about 5 minutes to be cool enough to
handle, but no need to rush it. And no.... I have never had a problem
with catching the paper or the plywood on fire at 325 degrees, but your
mileage may vary.

Bob Stemmler

[NoSheeples]

I would never use that kind of heat. I would try 200 first. you risk making
them brittle and discoloring them.
If all else fails then I would consider moere heat.

[kirb]

I would let them cool for at least an hour. The plastic can find it's
warped home again if taken out of the mold too quick. I've had that
happen to a large plastic and had to re-heat it.

Let it cool fully before messing with it (even more so now that the
lower plywood board is hot)

Kirb

[HowdyDoody]

Well there's a much safer way, provided you've got some sun where you are.

I place them between two sheets of really thick glass (came off of old
photocopiers). Leave them in the direct sun for a couple of hours, you'll
want to keep an eye on them.

Never fails, and no risk of damage.

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[Kansas Pinball]

I don't think it really matter what "sane" temperature you use. If it
is a lower temp, you will just wait longer for it to droop. The idea
here is to get the plastic soft so that it can be flattened and cooled
at the same time. The method works perfectly if you pay attention. The
only way to damage it is if you forget about it and don't take it out
as soon as it starts to droop. That is what is critical.

Doug

[Musicwow]

>I place them between two sheets of really thick glass (came off of old
>photocopiers). Leave them in the direct sun for a couple of hours, you'll
>want to keep an eye on them.
>

I do a similar thing with the pieces of glass but I use an old toaster oven
that came from the salvation army. I set the glasses with the plastics
inbetween on top of the oven with it set at the lowest setting and usually use
only the lower burner. I turn the glasses and plastics together over every five
minutes until they flatten out which takes about 20-30 minutes. Let them cool
well before removing them from the glass. It works well for me. - Bruce

[Fred Kemper]

Ah yes. The South Texas method.

Been doing them that way for years. :)

--
Fred
TX
CARGPB#8
******************

"HowdyDoody" <Ho...@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:41c1de74$1...@127.0.0.1...

[fredsm...@yahoo.com]

1) Place the plastic on a flat, non-stick surface like a cookie sheet
or pie pan.

2) Have a phone book opened in the middle, and put one sheet of clean
white paper (printer paper) over the phone book page. Put this to the
side of the oven.

3) Put the cookie sheet/pie pan and plastic in a "cold" oven
(preferably one with an oven window) and set the heat dial to 225
degrees. Close the oven door.

4) Keep your eyes on the plastic at all times. In about two minutes the
oven will heat up, which will affect the plastic. Open the oven door a
bit if you can't see clearly through the oven window.

5) As soon as you see the plastic start to collapse, take the cookie
sheet/pie pan out of the oven and slide the plastic onto the white
paper in the phone book. Place another white sheet of paper over the
plastic and close the phone book. Put two or three heavy books on top
of the phone book.

6) Let stand for 15 minutes.

7) Remove plastic from phone book... Result: Flat Plastic!

[bogart]

I thought the South Texas method involved refinery by-products? ;-)

bogart

[Steve C]

I don't use an oven. Instead, I use a cookie sheet and a heat gun to
flatten them out. Just keep waving the heat gun back and forth to get
the overall heat dispersed and you'll see the plastic kind of raise up
and then flatten out. Then I use a spatula to scoop it up and I lay it
on my glass top stove which is very flat. I lay several books on top
of the plastic to keep it flat while I go on to the next plastic.
after a few of these have been done, I lay the ones that have been
done on the counter in the kitchen with heavy books (dictionaries,
atlas, War and Peace, old calculus books, etc.) laying on top of the
ones that will cool pretty quickly.

that's about it.

steve c

On Thu, 16 Dec 2004 16:33:27 GMT, John Brandson <jbra...@jhilb.com>
wrote:

[Josh]

I've found a hair dryer works great. Just aim the hair dryer for a minute
or two at the plastic, put a book on it as the plastic softens, remove the
book, and you've got a flattened plastic.

Josh
http://www.pingeek.com, pinball dvd's for sale

"Kansas Pinball" <cyber...@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:1103217174.1...@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...

[A Pin Fan]

I just tried my first plastic flattening. It worked great. Electric
oven, set to 225 degrees. I placed the plastic graphics side down on
white paper, on an insulated cookie sheet (two layers of metal with a
1/4" air space in the middle for more even heating). The plastic
sagged when the oven was around 200 degrees; around 6 minutes after
starting. I'm assuming that the actual plastic temp was a bit below
200. I placed it graphics side down (right side up) because it was
bowed severly up and didn't want it to wrinkle if the edges stayed
still and the middle sagged.

[monkeybug]

The heat gun (hair dryer?) method has been demonstrated in one of
Clay's "This Old Pinball" (TOP) videos. I used his method on some
plastics and it worked perfectly.

You might want to consider investing the $6 (or $8?) for the DVD, if
you are skittish about it.

On Thu, 16 Dec 2004 16:33:27 GMT, John Brandson <jbra...@jhilb.com>
wrote:

>