My grandson (bless his heart) gave me a small fountain for my birthday. I thought it would look prettier if I put some small plants next to it…but, didn’t have any low profile pots or planters and didn’t want to have to go downtown to look for some. So, I decided to make my own.
These look like somebody’s grandmas candy dishes, but they work just great. The thing I did wrong was use 1/4” acrylic instead of 1/8”. It was extremely tough to form these. I cut a rectangle and a square with drainage holes in them. I knew that they would mis-form when I started making them into containers, but rather enjoyed the organic look that resulted…especially next to my ‘organic’ looking fountain.
I wanted to use my heat gun, but discovered that it would take forever, so went back to my old way of using the BBQ out on the deck. Got it to about 325º, set everything up on a big cookie sheet, and carefully put it inside with the lid down for about 30 min.
The square one in thick regular acrylic was laid over my square piece of bench steel and set up on top of a small stainless mixing bowl. I used my Ov-Glove to try shaping it once it was out of the grill. I didn’t have nearly enough hands.
The rectangle one is thick glass green acrylic…first laid on top of a very small metal loaf pan and heated then formed by putting another slightly larger loaf pan down over the top of it and pushing down with all my might. Put extra weights on it and as it cooled, kept pushing it down.
Hey girl, way to lean into it! Yeah, the 1/4" was tough, but look what you got - it wouldn’t have nearly the impact if it were 1/8". Thick glass green rocks. @curt bought some locally that had a slightly deeper green to it, so there exists a difference in acrylic sources.
Thank you, Marion. Actually, they’re 1 2 3’s! No machinists around here. I bought them for something…now I can’t remember what…but, I’ve used them in several various ways. Some hefty weight to them is an attribute not to be ignored, either. I wrapped them in clear plastic wrap to keep them clean while I was using them as weights when gluing things together.
Thank you! I wish I had more metal shaped things around the house to use when making this stuff. I was aiming to get a very flat bottom on these, but they still rock a little. And good design chops would really make some outstanding looking stuff. If I had just made the ends of these flat pieces to be shaped like one would design to fold paper, I could have had way lovelier end results. That will take more thought and planning than this one did.
Gosh, those bowls are gorgeous! What a nice display they make next to the fountain. And you are giving me an idea of how to solve a problem I have—I’ll post if I ever get ‘er done.
Too thick…but I gave it my best shot.