Strip/Line Bender Induction?

[Sven]

Hey I'm at the hackspace today and probably also most days this week. Does anyone have time to give me an induction on how to use the strip/line bender to bend a piece of acrylic 45 degrees?

[Adrian Godwin]

The two things you can do wrong in perspex bending are :

1. Heat it too little. It then doesn't bend freely and you get a bigger radius than you wanted. It tends to be particularly bad at the edges, as they're not being pulled evenly.

2. Heat it too much. Bubbles appear in the sheet and can't be removed.

The actual speed depends on ambient temperature, perspex thickness, bend angle etc. Experience is the best teacher. Get some scrap perspex of similar size and practise until you get a sufficiently good result.

I don't think you can damage the strip heater as long as you avoid forcing the bend (which would probably crack the acrylic anyway) and switch it off, let it cool, put it away afterwards.

On Sun, Jul 27, 2014 at 8:33 PM, Sven <sven.d...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hey I'm at the hackspace today and probably also most days this week. Does anyone have time to give me an induction on how to use the strip/line bender to bend a piece of acrylic 45 degrees?

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[Sven]

Thanks for the info, I'll be sure to get some practice on scrap pieces. Any idea how I can plug it in? The cable ends in a female receptor and I'm not sure what plugs into that.

[Adrian Godwin]

It's 110V. Use the site transformer.

[Philip Roy]

The line bender is a 110 volt tool and needs to be used with one of the big yellow transformers.

Below find a few links that describe the bending process.....

A simple animation

http://www.notesandsketches.co.uk/Line_Bending.html

and a rather good (if unconventional) tutorial (audio is poor but it covers all you need to know)

http://youtu.be/UQHwMM0BCQU  

 It would be a good idea to clean out the worst of the sawdust etc before use, a slurp with the vacuum cleaner and a quick flick with a dry paintbrush will suffice to prevent a potential fire.  And definitely, as Adrian says, practice first on a few bits of scrap, there is lots in the box beside the lasercutter.

  If you are not in a hurry, I will be in at some point this week and would  be happy to show you how it all works. You can catch me on the IRC to co-ordinate. 

Phil ye Pholding Phellow

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[Svenny Notimportant]

thanks for the advice, it was a success :D

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