A Bright Idea - Acrylic

Used your concept @Jules and did something for my son…this is his gamer tag…and favorite Pokemon. USB powered so it will sit near his computer most likely.

Three layers of acrylic. Clear sandwiched in between two transluscent blues.

LED base. Bottom layer 1/4" opaque blue, 1/8" opaque blue with slot for LED strip, 1/8" fluro blue, then top layer 1/4" opaque blue.

In the light without LEDs on

In the light with LEDs on

In the dark with LEDs on.

Observations.

  1. Since the frame is transluscent, it shows where the glue bonded to the layers…so must remedy that either with an opaque frame or some other way of bonding the layers.
  2. My office needs a good dusting since there’s alot of dust on my clear…lmao

Other than that…I’m pretty happy…:grinning:

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SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!! :heart_eyes:

(I think I just became one of the rabid “can’t wait to get one of these things in my hands” people!)

That looks SO much better than I thought it would! Thank you for testing it!

:smile: :smile: :smile:

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Okay, now that I’ve finally stopped hyperventilating, I can see from @smcgathyfay 's example that the engraving is going to need one more slight modification if I want to use the transparent colored acrylic, otherwise it’s going to display incorrectly.

So one more time back to the drawing board.

I’ll upload the final revisions tomorrow. :slight_smile:

Okay…done! (Didn’t take as long as I thought.)

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From that picture anyway the glue looks pretty cool. Kind of like electricity going through it. If anything I would want more :smiley:

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Good point… maybe I’ll put some more so it looks like it’s intended! Great idea from a bad situation…lol

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That is absolutely beautiful. These are some of the things that I want to do, although I had not thought of using two colors of acrylic and cutting a shape too. Outstanding work. I can’t get enough of your work. Thank you.:grin:

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Just curious, what type of glue did you use?

You can use acetone to stick acrylic things to other acrylic things. At least with acrylic nails. It sort of melts them together. Or something. The acrylic comes as a powder and the acetone does magical, smelly things to it. I wonder if this would work with acrylic sheets? And be uniform enough to adhere the acrylic sheets together without showing spots where it didn’t quite stick.

When I need to glue translucent papers together without seeing glue, I use a really awesome paper cement. It’s sort of the texture of honey, so it doesn’t soak through or saturate the paper, and because it evenly coats the entire layer, you don’t see anything noticeable in the finished product. I wonder if maybe there might be a product that would perform similarly for acrylic?

Last thought, maybe the layers don’t need to be glued on the face/surfaces. Maybe you could sandwich them together and coat the edges? Like they do with watercolor blocks. And the tops of notepads. I think it’s some sort of PVA glue, and it’s thick and rubbery and not invisible at all. Plus, considering all those things are designed to only hold well-enough and be tear-out-able, thats probably not a great solution.

Ok, full disclosure, I have a glue/adhesive obsession.

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Be careful about the company you share that with. :slight_smile:

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I use acrylic cement
https://www.amazon.com/Weld-Acrylic-Adhesive-Applicator-Bottle/dp/B0096TWKCW

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Ditto. Acetone isn’t as quick, clean or wicking.

But it’s not as toxic either so there are trade offs.

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When I was first putting together my tileplates, I had asked what works best for bonding acrylic to acrylic. I confirm that weld-on (now under name sci-grip) is THE best for dealing with small pieces being put together. I tried a few otgers, even straight acetone, and weld-on means holding pieces together for about 20 aeconds, setting it down, and moving on. And as long as the window is cracked or you make sure to drink water, no headaches or hangover feel (thumbs up)

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Looks like I bought Weld-On 3. Is there a major difference between 3 and 4 in usage or results?

There is a 3,4, and 16 that are easily available retail wise. The lower the number, the thinner it is. 16 is a pretty thick fluid.

Thinner means less working time before it is “set” and technically, less strength if you don’t have it set right.

It melts plexiglass into another piece of plexi- so strength of the bond has a lot to do with how much surface is connected to other surface and coated appropriately with fluid.

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3 sets alot faster than 4. When I use 4, I can move parts a bit to straighten or such. With 3 its pretty instant grab and stick…lol

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Take a couple pieces of scrap acrylic, glue them together* with your Weld-on 3, let it cure and then try breaking them apart. You should find that the joint is the strongest part, even with the thinner cements.

  • Works well when made as a T joint.
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4 will hold just fine once it sets…it just takes longer which is useful in some instances like gluing two pieces together that need to line up.
For joints I use 3

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So the biggest difference between 3 & 4 is how fast they set up?

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Pretty much…I cant tell much difference in viscosity but apparently there is a slight difference.

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I still have this on my bookmark of “finished looking” acrylic lit signs. I need to find an example of one that would look good “framed” and play with it…couldn’t believe then and even now, what a huge difference this made to the look! #necrogame

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thanks for sharing!

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