How to Bend Sheet Acrylic or Plexiglass With Simple Tools

1. Test the Technique

   To set up your plastic or acrylic sheet to bend simple curves for your miniature and model projects, first remove the protective covering from the material you wish to bend. Use long, thin test strips (1 inch or so in width) to practice your technique and learn how your particular heat source affects your chosen thickness of plastic.

2. Lay Out the Plastic

   Lay your plastic on your heat-safe work surface and place a scrap of strip wood over your plastic roughly 1/4 of an inch in front of where you want your bend to be. This will be somewhat determined by the thickness of your plastic, as thicker plastic will need a wider radius curve for most bends. Use a ruler to check that your sheet of plexiglass or plastic is held squarely clamped beneath your strip wood jig. The strip wood will restrict the application of heat (it will catch fire if you overheat the wood) and will prevent the plastic beneath it from becoming soft enough to bend.

   Tip

   Leave a long end of your plastic strip where you can easily push up on it with a hand protected by a welding glove or oven glove. It is far easier to bend the long end of a plastic strip than the short end. Make sure any flammable or heat-sensitive material on your clamps is well away from where you will be applying heat to your plexiglass.

3. Heat the Plastic

   The objective is to heat the plastic evenly along a line just in front of the straight edge of your clamped jig. To do so, pass your heat source at an even, slow speed along the line of plastic in front of the jig, keeping it far enough away that the heat source will not singe your wood jig.

   Tip

   Try to keep the heat source at a right angle to your sheet of plastic/plexiglass. If you turn your heat source as you pass across the acrylic, the heat won't be evenly applied across the entire width of your sheet.

4. Apply Pressure

   While you are applying even heat along the bend line, press gently upon the sheet of material you are bending. There will come a point when the material will move upward easily as it reaches a molten state. You should be able to feel this point evenly along the full width of the strip you are bending. It should not be softer on one side than on the other.

   When you feel that your sheet is allowing you to push up evenly on it, remove your heat source and set it safely aside on a stand or heat-resistant surface; the end of your tool will be hot! Hold the sheet material evenly with both hands (both in protective gloves) and push the sheet up gently bending it against the line of the jig as shown in the photo above. You must use two hands to do this with even pressure, or your material will twist slightly as you bend it unless you are working with a very thin, narrow strip.

5. Allow to Cool

   When you have your sheet at the correct angle or have bent the curve you want (for a window or the front of a curved bakery case, which may not be at 90 degrees Fahrenheit), hold the plastic gently in place for a few seconds until it sets up again. Allow it to cool still clamped in the jig as shown.

   Tip

   You can use the same heat tool you use to bend plastic, to seal and neaten the cut edges of any plastic parts. Run your heat tool gently back and forth along a cut plastic edge to soften it just enough that it turns clear.

Troubleshooting

• Bending Before the Material Is Soft Enough

  In the photo below, you can see a poor bend in a sheet of 1/16-inch thick plexiglass. The bend is kinked, not even, and is too far away from the jig, so it is not straight and square with the end of the material. The problems with this bend were caused by not applying the heat source close enough to the jig and bending the material before the material was evenly softened across the entire width of the material.

  You must wait until the moment when you feel the material "slump" as you have no way of measuring the heat. When you are applying upward pressure on the end of your acrylic, you will feel it start to move against your hand, then it will move very quickly. That free point when the material is able to move quickly is when you want to shape it against the jig. If you start trying to force it before it is fully softened, you will not get as even a bend, as it will be soft in some areas but not others along your bend line.

• Bubbles and Scorching

  If you don't apply heat evenly to the bend line of a sheet of plexiglass or acrylic you can create bubbles or scorch marks that cannot be removed. Do not keep your heat gun or torch too close to the plastic. If you are singeing the wood on your jig, you are too close.

  If you find bubbles or scorch marks occurring in your test bends, move your heat a bit faster along your bend line or hold it farther away from the surface of your sheet material. The distance and speed will be different depending on the thickness of the material you are working with.

• Twisted Bends

  The photo below shows a test strip of sheet acrylic that did not bend evenly along the line of the jig. This is the same strip shown in the jig where the heat was applied too far away from the bend line and applied unevenly. The bend was made before the material was evenly softened, and this resulted in an angled rather than a straight line bend. The material on one side of the strip was not quite ready to bend fully when the bend was made. This resulted in an angled rather than a straight bend against the jig.

Making Even Bends in Paper-Thin Acrylic or Plastic Sheet With a Simple Jig

You can make bends of all types in very thin sheet acrylic, provided you work out the heat and time required for bending thin material and do not pass that point. Thin sheets are easily warped quite far away from the bend. For thinner sheets, you need to apply heat evenly to a very narrow line of the material. If you do not have a heat source that will work for thin materials, try the method shown for heat welding plastic, using a metal kitchen spatula or blade heated against an iron, then pressed against the material.

The paper-thin acrylic sheet shown below was bent with an embossing heat tool, which was easy to control above the jig. Across a wider section of material, even heat application would be difficult to achieve without causing the material to warp. Using a heated blade would be a more reliable method.