I glued acrylic!!! But.....

H

HELIREEFER

Ok, i successfully cut and glued my first acrylic joint. However i have a few questions:

when glueing with weld on 4 using pins method --
do you usually clamp the peice that is flat on the table ( i assume yes)
using speed squares to square up the vertical peice - how do you secure the vertical peice and still have enough movement to smoosh together after removing pins.
Do you usually glue from the inside of a project towards the outside edge, or the other way around. ( i glued from the outside in, but think that it maybe would be cleaner the other way, that way any excess bleeding out would be routed off.

I got a few tiny bubbles in the joint, is this so terrible, the contact looks smooth and seems really tight so far. Is there like a zero bubble rule. These are smaller than a needle points
 
Hi
We congrats, it's all easier from here.
1. You should not need to clamp the piece.
2. Alittle loop of masking tape or double sided tape, it really shouldn't move much.
3. Inside or outside really shouldn't make any difference.
4. Zero bubles is something to shoot for, But if it was easy to do Marc would be building tanks for all you guys in the metroplex.
Later Joe
 
zero bubbles? I have not been able to achieve that yet. I do glue from the inside though. when you glue from the outside there is a greater chance the glue will run down the side as well as in the joint.

I am no plastics expert, but I occasionally do some work for a couple of plastics companies and I just do as they have instructed me. I was also told that weldon #3 is better than #4 when using extruded sheets of acrylic. They use the #4 weldon for cast sheets of acrylic. The #3 weldon will set much faster than the #4.

I don't usually smoosh the pieces together. I let gravity do its job of holding the vertical piece to the horizontal piece. Using a #3 weldon it will set very quickly, so you have to have everything in place before you apply the weldon. After about 5 minutes with the #3 you can move the pieces around.

Others may do it differently, but this method works for me.
 
Shawn, Weld-on #3 is soon no more. Every vendor I've spoken with has pulled it from their shelves and IPS isn't going to make / sell it either. Crazy. I've heard all the sign people love #3 so that should make for some interesting feedback.

Getting the proper downward pressure is tricky. You don't want to squish it down, but still some downward pressure may be necessary on occasion. If you put too much pressure, it presses out the melted acrylic & solvent and will shortly be replaced with air bubbles.

If you put a speed square on each side of the upright piece, that will help keep it straight and 90 degrees.

I glue from the outside because if it puddles, it puddles on the portion I'll be routing off.
 
So they will not make #3 period? or just not for the general public? That will be interesting because one of the plastics companies I do work for uses the #3 very extensively. I think it is the weldon they use the most by far.

Another note to help eliminate the bubbles is to have fairly well cut and smooth edges. If there are big gaps in the edges from cutting you will tend to get more bubbles. You should read Marcs pages on working with the acrylic. Scrapers and jointers work good to help smooth out the edges.
 
Wonder if it's because of the recent EPA changes on VOC emissions... a lot of the solvents in paints, etc. are being eliminated because of that.
 
I have read marcs page's
i am using an 80 tooth atb blade on a table saw and made a razer blade scraper like he shows on his page. Don't have a jointer, yet....


Really i thought the edges were really pretty smooth, i just think it is my inexperience that caused these tiny bubbles, this is a small project that doesn't have to be water tight. Just practicing right now.

thanks for the response's
 
@gomavs wrote:
So they will not make #3 period? or just not for the general public? That will be interesting because one of the plastics companies I do work for uses the #3 very extensively. I think it is the weldon they use the most by far. said:
Yep, Allied is down to a limited amount and asked me how much I wanted while I could still get it. Since I don't use it, I only bought one.
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