Plexi Bender

hello, this is a tuturial to build your very own blexiglass bender, with this machine you can bend straight lines under a any corner and bend little tabs.

you will need these files to start assembling your plexi bender. lasercut 1-7 are the parts needed to set up your machine. In the second picture you have the bolts and screws required.

other parts required are:

• rope
• resistant wire
• alu tube, 6mm
• hinge
• power switch
• some cables
• crocodile clamps
• springs
• mdf plates, 6mm

we will use te bolts to put togheter the parts.

we leave one side open.

setup the supports as shown in the pictures, at last put togheter the last side of the main assembly.

four gliders will need to be installed, becuse this isn't very universal you will have to search them on your own, these will serve later as a guiding for the lifting mechanismn. When the gliders are installed you may glue the box togheter. When the glue is dry cut a piece of an alu pipe of 6mm that matches the width of the box.

pay attention on how your glider works, you may first check the next step!

this box is also glued togheter, we haden't had a good option to place the bolts because we were cramed in space. therefore we added alot of surface to glue the box togheter. after this you can add the 6 mm alu pipe true the holes.

this step goes hand in hand with the previous one, it's possible you cannot do this previous without checking how your glider works, so think first, act later.

we use ropes to pull up the little box, we use 6mm pipes as lifting mechanismn. locate the ropes so they start at the bottom and go up to the static pipe and from there on true the opening in the inner box.

The ropes has to leave true the holes, see picture 1, we will have to do this 4 times, see picture 2.
Next we will have to place 4 roundhead screws in the side of the main frame, locate them so they line up with the rope leaving the holes. you may now do this one more time but more to the middle, locate this one so this screw lines up with the hole in the supports, see picture 5. For the last time we will have to add to more screws, this time very close togheter. we will do this in the middle of the inner box as shown in picture 7.

now we have to line out the box horezantally if this is done, make a nut holding the 4 ropes togheter. guiden the rest of the rope out of the main box.

connect the supports to the inner box, note that the ropes weren't installed at this picture. find the location of the 2 little squares with the hole in it, if placed correctly you may proceed and mount the upper plate. if in place thighten up every screw.

Very easy step, untighten the two screws located in the back and line up the protractor, do this for each side.

we did this like this so u can deattach them for transport.

find the correct parts and follow the instructions on the picture and gently put the bolt true the hole. Do this twice and you should get the same result seen at the last picture.

Take your resistant wire and make at both ends a little hook so we can attach a rope to it, make sure the wire takes up the entire length of the box. Now guiden the rope true the hole, at this end you need to attach the spring, do it so that you will havee tension once tightend down. We used two spring, one at each side.

This part you are free to do whatever you want, we use some laboratory cables to connect our power source to. To attach the cables to the resistant wire we used two alligator clips. At the front we placed a power switch, so we can turn off the power once the plexi is warm.

for this we use an untouched mdf plate, at the bottom we milled 1,5 mm of material away, we did this so we can place the piano hinge in it. We also milled the same space away from the upper plate. Find your slef some tinny screws and use them to thigthen up the hinge.

Now is the machine ready to bend some plexi-glass, use a simple clamp to block the bend plate at an angle.