Trying to brainstorm what to do with some leftover acrylic since I don’t want to trash it, but I also don’t have room to hang on to tiny bits forever. I checked out this thread and saw recycling’s not really an option, so wondering what y’all do with the little bits and baubles that are left after say, cutting some intricate earrings or getting to the very edge of a sheet where you just can’t make anything useful anymore.
My thought was maybe smashing it to bits (not sure how i’m going to do that without injuring myself or others, but I’m sure there’s a way) and then stirring it in with some resin to make coasters or something.
Would love to hear what creative stuff other people do with their leftover acrylic.
I don’t have any ideas, but maybe encasing the acrylic in resin that you wouldn’t have otherwise needed is probably not better than just trashing it. That said, bits of acrylic in resin sounds really fun.
if you have an old jewelry mold press or even a tee shirt press you could probably toss on a stack of acrylic and put it under heat and pressure. They sell Teflon sheets if there is an issue with the acrylic binding to polished steel.
Ha, fair. I mean I’d like to just be able to melt it down in the oven then pour it into a mold, but we rent, and I’m pretty sure my landlord would be like LOL no if I tried to do that. So mixing it into resin for a colorful effect was my next thought.
I toss the tiny bits into a can, and when the can is full, I offer it to the art teachers at a local grade school for the kids to make mosaics and other projects with.
Larger pieces get turned into stands for postcards; personalized gift tags; or tags to identify my acrylic jigsaw puzzles.
Ooh, mosaic was one I hadn’t thought of, that could be fun. Still have to figure out how to smash it up without putting an eye out but could be super cool.
When things have a lot of holes, all the little scrap has the same shape, and I save those in things like old pill bottles (even with wood) so it is all of them and just them. for just that purpose.
In case it hadn’t occurred to you - you have a laser - you could lay out all your slightly too big pieces on the crumb tray and run a grid cut over them…some parts will miss but it won’t do any damage to your crumb tray.
@CMadok, do you use a printer to sublimate? My sister sublimates but needs special products to do that. I didn’t realize you could do that on the acrylic.
What is sublimation? I’ve seen the word, and know it has something to do with printing, but have no clue what it is or how to do it. Do you need special equipment?
