Thinking about adding plastic to your project?

[Matt Osminer]

Hey all, 

I'm thinking about incorporating some plexiglass into an electric guitar design (tip of the hat to Jeff for the idea), and wanted to share a cool resource Andy turned me on to.

There is a place called Plasticare down in Englewood 

4211 South Natches Court, Unit K , Englewood, Colorado 80110

(303)781-1171.

Open M-F: 7:30am to 5pm.

 

They specialize in all kind of things plastic, including adhesives, resins etc.  The resins might be interesting to those of you doing table tops.

In plexiglass they have sizes ranging from 1/16"-1/8"-1/4", and larger in various colors.  Available thicknesses depends on the material you select.  They also have different types of plexi (polycarbonate, etc), and are very helpful in determining what is best for your project.  They offer samples if you want to stop in to see how they look and hold up under abuse.

For those of us who have yet to take Andy's laser class, they also offer laser fab services.  All you need to do is bring them a vector based file (DXF, SVG, EPS, AI, etc) that they can feed into their CAM software.  They said they can also scan a drawing and fab from that, but the results won't be as precise.  

I'm not a CAD expert, but I can get by with Sketchup.  Doing a little research Sketchup will not do vector exports with the free version.  You can shell out a bunch of cash for the Pro version, or I found this free Sketchup Plugin that will do STL/DXF exports.  I haven't tried it out yet, but if it works I'll share.  If somebody has a solution they know works, please share and save me some time!

It's usually a 3 day turnaround for most laser jobs, 

There is a minimum cost for setup, and then they bill by the hour according to how long it takes to fab a piece, and the number of pieces you're making.  They will provide an estimate before they start so you can change your mind.

Hope this is helpful!  

MO