plexiglass questions

[dream]

EDIT: The way some of the members here have desperately tried to identify my location and nationality for whatever reason they believed was needed for by asking an admin to check my profile logs and researching me by the content of my posts has been very creepy and unnecessary. So bye.

[norty303]

In the UK a lot of beer now gets delivered in pressurised clear plastic globes wrapped in a cardboard stiffener to assist with stacking.
I don't know if they are re-usable/recyclable but you may be able to find some via that route.

[Jem]

Dichloromethane is what you need for joining Perspex (Plexiglass), otherwise known as chloroform. You can buy it on eBay

[Jem]

Dichloromethane will give you a pretty invisible seam. the only way that i'm aware of to get rid of any surplus material would be to grind it away. Then you would have to polish the grind until it wasn't perceptible. You can also flame polish using an Oxy-Acetylene torch if you're feeling brave. the only other polishing option I know of is diamond polishing, but then we're into the realms of specialist equipment.

Cyanoacrylate will outgas and cause fogging on the Acrylic.

[norty303]

I did try to find a link, but I think the terminology is wrong, as I only turned up similar things to your picture, or novelty glasses.
We were going to use them as weather domes for things like Solar 250s but the bar had gone by the time we'd de-rigged and remembered to go and try and find someone.

[Draco]

I have used Toluene as well for bonding plexiglass, i found out the hard way that it well effect plexiglass when i used it to try and clean tape residue from a high voltage plasma globe driver that happened to use black plexiglass for it's cabinet, oddly i think i have chloroform, i know i had some in the past but the police took it (long story there) Methylene Chloride will bond a lot of plastics as well. I used Toluene to repair a tank on a humidifier with a sheet of plexiglass and aside from a few air bubbles it worked out ok. unlike glue all these solvents turn the plastic to liquid then re hardens when the solvent evaporates off

As for using black plexiglass to hide the power supply, I don't see any problems with that as long as you have the ventilation holes, the now badly melted case to the plasma driver works very well and that sucker puts out over 20kv. I have also used it for cabinet parts, if the power supply got hot enough to effect the plexiglass i think you would have other problems

[buffo]

Dichloromethane bonds plexiglass by actually melting (well, dissolving is probably more accurate) some of the material on either side of the bond. When it re-solidifies, the seam should be pretty close to invisible. You need to make sure there are no entrapped air bubbles, and you absolutely want the two surfaces to be very smooth and polished before you join them, but when done right it ends up looking like a continuous piece of plastic.

A long time ago I made a paperweight by gluing several squares of plexiglass together to make a 2 inch cube. Then I heated it up and crushed it in a vise before it could cool off. When it was cool (and visibly deformed) I drilled 4 holes through the cube, and then heated it back up so it would spring back to the cube shape again. This bent the drill holes into curved arcs. I poured blue dye in the holes to make them stand out against the clear plastic before polishing the whole thing to a very smooth finish. Looked damned cool, except for one of the joints in the stack where I didn't smooth the glue out well enough and ended up with some trapped air bubbles. Otherwise it looked like a solid block of plexiglass. (No idea what happened to that damned thing...)

Adam

[aktopjian]

maybe try a fish tank web site like reefcentral.com, they have a bunch of info on bonding acrylic and people who know the best ways that could probably lead you to a method of doing it.

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh....php?t=1628998

not a sphere but shows what he did to seamlessly join two pieces. It has a lot of pictures on how he did it. little thicker than what your working with.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/IPS-Weld-On-...-/151110629301 link to the 2 part glue..

IPS's Weld-On #42 50ml Cartridge is meant for use with Weld-On's manual applicator gun. It is a two-component 10:1 reactive, high strength acrylic based adhesive that provides "museum quality" water clear joints. It has excellent weatherability. Mil Spec A-8576C

[Bradfo69]

(No idea what happened to that damned thing...)

Ask Boo Boo kitty..... it's under the sofa in the den.

[dsli_jon]

..I need a transparent sphere with a hole in the bottom... ...Haven't found anything ready for sale....

..Sooo, how come these won't work? http://plastic-domes-spheres.com/plastic-spheres/ ..yeah, 'pricey', but.. They 'seam' to be very well made..

..Also, re: The PSU.. If your only goal is 'dressing it up', instead of going to all the dusty-trouble of routing out vents / etc, in black-plexi, why not just take the steel-casing off (those are Usually fastened with screws; worst-case, maybe pop-riveted on, which is certainly re-fixable..) and kill the stickers (Rubber cement-thinner 'Bestine', available at most art supply stores, is majik for removing most stickers..) and just Paint it black?

..And, if you wanted it 'glossy' / sexy, well, there's gloss-black / crystal-clear, etc.. Then you could always put a small 'L-bracket' piece of black (or smoked, so you can still see the power-LED..) over the 'ugly' wire-connex.. Then, there's 'split-loom tubing', to wiremold yer wiring in / out of the project-box, etc, etc.. I see no reason why inside of an hour you can't have that thing lookin like one of Darth Vaders PSs..

fwiw..
j