Proofgrade Acrylic Slump Bowls

Continuing the discussion from Adventures in Acrylic:

@Jules was kind enough to let me post these bowls of her design and inspiration first. I got a request for these bowls from my wonderful art and environment chair. The request was accompanied by a Wagner heat gun. And she did a fantastic job decorating the church for the season. So I obliged.

This is very simply. Put the design in the GFUI. Size it as big or small as you want. Press print. It works flawlessly in both 1/8" and 1/4" acrylic. I didn’t use the heat gun as there have been some cautions about doing a larger piece. While I had the oven heated up baking cookies with my new bunny cookie cutter, I thought it would be a good opportunity to knock these out. I did the cookies first, by the way.

Set the oven at 300 degrees. Get a sturdy sheet pan and some nice hot pads. Find a bowl that you want to use to form the acrylic with, preferably something that is thick and holds heat, like a good pyrex bowl.

My fiirst attemp wasn’t too good. I was doing a test piece in my Chemcast and forgot to set it for 2 passes. To salvage the piece, I engraved the back a couple passes and that freed the design. Not the most efficient way but I did work ok. Except for some minor positioning issues at the edge where I missed a bit. So proof of concept. And the bowl I used just wouldn’t work. I figured I’d be better off with a mold concept, two bowls that nested to press the acrylic evenly. That was much bettter.

The nine inch Corell shallow bowls worked perfectly. The hardest thing was getting the acrylic placed evenly on the form. I put the setup on a wire cooling rack that fits in a heavy sheet pan. Then slid the whole thing into the oven at 300 degrees. I checked at five minutes, and then every minute. At seven minutes the acrylic started a slight sag and gave way when I pressed on the top bowl. Using oven mitts I pressed firmly down on the top bowl and held it in place for about thirty seconds. Then I upended the bowls, covered them with a layer of dishtowels and weighted the whole thing down with a cast iron skillet to allow for a gradual cool to anneal the acrylic. I also checked every once and a while during the initial forming to make sure it wasn’t sticking to the bowls.

So this turned out pretty good. The 1/8" is very light, but seems sturdy enough. Not anything heavy, but it would work for a candy dish. The 1/4" acrylic is strong. Doesn’t seem delicate at all, but looks that way.

I could see making some small ones of this to use with a place setting with a little paper napkin in as a personal bread basket or whatever.

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Those are beautiful. If only I had my Forge I think I know what part of my wife’s birthday present would be :smile:

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Oh yeah, you did a much better job of slumping than I could…those look fantastic! :grinning:

I’ve got a few other designs for the bowls, I’ll have to try the oven method next time.
(Long sad story on the grill episode I attempted (and flubbed) this weekend.)

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You’re definately not in a creative slump !! That came out beautifully. It almost looks “flowerish” if you put adisc shaped light int he center and mounted it on a wall as a flower light… (But it looks fantastic as a bowl alone !!)

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Ohhhhhh, gorgeous! Your projects are always so inspiring. She will be delighted with the bowls, and you will need to make more for yourself! Now I’m gonna have to comb the thrift stores for a couple matching shallow bowls…

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Oh wow. I really haven’t had much interest in acrylic until just now. That’s beautiful.

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Actually that first one is really cool too. It’s not a traditional bowl, but is more of a cool saddle plot, but that is actually really interesting. Also you could totally use it for a flatter horizontally oriented flower arrangement.

Really nice second version of course, which came out amazingly well, with no crazing or cracking… Great job.

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Too hot & too long in the grill? Got bubbly?

(BTDT :slight_smile:)

My wife is not “slumping acrylic in the kitchen oven friendly”.

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Great process and design. Works really well. :grinning:

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Worse than that…hotted up the grill and the bowls inside it…opened the lid to put the acrylic in…and a single freaking drop of rain chose that moment to fall and land on one of the bowls.

KaPow! (Turns out that one wasn’t Pyrex.)

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This project is definitely on my list for when I get my Forge. They came out Really good! Congrats!

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This is a great way to combine the ability of the GF to cut acrylic and the slump process to really make it pop.

I love your creativity and all you share with us.

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Whoa! That’d put me off slumping for good.

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Turned out beautifully.

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Absolutely beautiful! I can’t wait to try this!

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Incredible! Also I really like the first one. Good entry piece by a door or something.

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Ehh - it was a small bowl. It cracked (loudly) and split, but it wasn’t that much of a mess to clean up. :slightly_smiling_face:

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Wow. That is gorgeous. Can’t wait.

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That really is beautiful.

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Are there any safety issues with slumping acrylic in your food oven?

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