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Registered Member #120
Joined: Fri Feb 10 2006, 07:07AM
Location: Westchester New York
Posts: 83
Hey all, I see a lot of beautiful work done here with acrylic. I have two question about making an enclosure. First, how thick should the acrylic be to drive a screw into? And lastly, how on earth is it done without cracking the acrylic? Do I pre-drill, then heat the screw a bit before screwing it in? Unless there are special screws? This i can't seem to do on my practice sheet, which is 1/4 thick.
Okay, that was basically it. I'm trying to make a water cooling in closure for my 1U server, lol. My intended design will be similar to this pruduct thermaltake symphony mini Once again thanks for your suggestions.
Registered Member #135
Joined: Sat Feb 11 2006, 12:06AM
Location: Anywhere is fine
Posts: 1735
Jim made my acrylic end plugs for my Tesla Coil and he drilled then tapped the holes for machine screws. If its thin acrylic you might have to get an undersized tap and a standard size tap to cut the threads incrementally. I don't know what to use as a tap lubricant other then probably bar soap, maybe glycerine, or something like that. Another option is to glue it. The good stuff comes from IPS WeldOn and #4 you suck up in a syringe and let capillary action do the work, its an awsome bond. Or you can get #16 which is like syrup and works well too.
Registered Member #618
Joined: Sat Mar 31 2007, 04:15AM
Location: Us-Great Lakes
Posts: 628
Well if your refering to Dr. Sparks Acrylic work...He uses an acrylic solvent glue and he uses .5" for the supporting peices and .25" for control panel and such places where therees some crafty cutting and drilling needing to be done. The only sucessful way I have ever screwed Acrylic with fasteners was from the paine sides not the thin edges. Thers a few posts around from me asking him how he does it, most are title "_______ Plexi" or Plexiglass, or you could just PM him.
Registered Member #120
Joined: Fri Feb 10 2006, 07:07AM
Location: Westchester New York
Posts: 83
Oh okay, I was actually using fine grain wood screws. I have a tap kit so I will try making my own threads. Hopefully that will work a lot better. However, I really like the glueing idea, I'm going to get a bottle of the acrylic glue.
As of now I think I will try using the screws again and use a combination of glued panels and screwed panels to make removable.
Lastly how can I make the sides I cut polished? I'm positive that there is something you put on the acrylic but I can't figure out what. Like in this picture, danger den case picture. Once again thanks a lot! Tom
Registered Member #477
Joined: Tue Jun 20 2006, 11:51PM
Location: Seattle, WA
Posts: 546
What a coincidence, I was about to start a thread like this. My intent is to use the acrylic enclosure for an oil-immersed transformer, however. I expect the acrylic solvent would be the only choice for me in that case. Has anybody tried that? (building an acrylic enclosure to hold mineral oil?) My hope was to avoid as much bonding as possible by getting an acrylic tube of sufficient diameter and then just gluing on a bottom piece, but 18"+ acrylic tubing is ridiculously expensive, and that's about the size I'd need.
Registered Member #135
Joined: Sat Feb 11 2006, 12:06AM
Location: Anywhere is fine
Posts: 1735
To polish the edges you want to make sure they're as clean as possible first, this means flat and as smooth as possible. You can cut the plastic with almost any saw, but fine tooth circular saws with high tooth counts and sharp carbide teeth work best. Then once cut you will need a carbide knife. You can get a carbide knife from glass suppliers like glasscraftinc or McMaster Carr. The knife is just basically a square piece of carbide. You drag this along the edge of the plexi so you sort of 'skin the plexi', peeling a potato sort of thing. That takes the edge down to a finer surface. Then I use a National 3A blowpipe and quickly pass the plexi over. I have this because I'm working on glassblowing. You should be able to use a cheap torch handle for Propane and not need worry about Gas-Oxy torches to do the job, just try to keep the flame condensed so you're not melting something that isn's supposed to be melted.
It's pretty easy once you get the hang of it, and the results are beautiful. You can also take out some scratches if you're careful with the torch. I even passed the flame into circular cutouts inside the plexi to polish holes I've drilled, and passed it over countersinks. Just be quick and careful and you'll have awsome results.
Registered Member #477
Joined: Tue Jun 20 2006, 11:51PM
Location: Seattle, WA
Posts: 546
Dr. Spark wrote ...
Yes, check out the Quad VTTC page and the tank @
Ah! I thought I'd seen something like that before, and I think that was it! Marvelous.
And Hazmatt: Thanks for the info too. I expect it's probably worth trying to build something small before spending $100's on the Real Deal. I've done some very limited plexi work in the past, and never really tried to get the edges clean, never used a torch, etc., so all that will require some practice.
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Making an enclosure from acrylic sheets?
Marvelous.