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working with acrylic

2/11/17       
Larry

Just had a small (3/8 x 7 x 7") clear acrylic panel returned to us. It was part of a decorative front on a teller line. It had severe internal cracking radiating from each standoff hole. The teller line had been in use for 2 months. Customer said all five were fine when they left but next morning the panels were all cracked except for the 6th one that was mounted high on a wall decoration. They were unhappy and accusing.
I'd never seen this before. Time for research via Google. Alcohol was highly suspect. We did a test on the one hole that was unaffected on the returned panel. We had put washers and bolt/nut in the hole to duplicate the attachment. Apply liberal amount of alcohol, it took less than a minute to start showing cracks and in five minutes they had spread 2".
The savings and loan company had probably changed cleaning contractors and they likely used a cleaning product with an alcohol base.
There are acrylic faced panels being used for door and drawer fronts. If you use any, warn your customers about this. I didn't know about it. Did you?
PS the face of the panel was unaffected other than the cracks.

2/12/17       #2: working with acrylic ...
MarkB Member

If you google acrylic cracking alchohol you'll find endless info. We do a bit of acrylic sign work and have read about it extensivvely over the years. Windex or most general window cleaners are a death sentence. I think there is even a video around showing the cracking in real time after flame polishing an edge.

Hard part I could imagine in a commercial application would be once you let the customer know how dangerous the problem is they may avoid the material. I'm not sure if with drilled holes you could've gasketed the cleaner away from the raw drilled edge with a rubber washer on both sides.

2/13/17       #3: working with acrylic ...
Alan F.

Do you provide a use and care manual at the end of each job? Lumicor in my sample is an acrylic.

A-

Click the link below to download the file included with this post.

Sample_Care_and_Maintenance.pdf

2/13/17       #4: working with acrylic ...
Larry

Many commercial sites use cleaning services with multiple crews. It would take a very dedicated store or office manager to make sure everyone of the crews understood enough English to understand the problem.
Alan, nice for the items generally used. Do you send it with the shipment or mail directly to the store c/o the manager?

2/13/17       #5: working with acrylic ...
Alan F.

Larry, we have a library of about 50 items, we built the instruction based on what materials are in the job. We submit it with the warranty. If it a real heads up material we put a label in the cabinet or on the product.

For our work which is commercial the GC turns over the manuals to the owners who give them to cleaning companies and staff.

We will also put "LOOK" on the shop drawings to anything with special care.

Generally our assistant puts the use and care together from the shop drawing spec page and inserts the items used from the library. If there is a new item she gets the use and care from the manufacturer and adjusts the instructions if need be for me to review.



Click the link below to download the file included with this post.

Document1.pdf

2/13/17       #6: working with acrylic ...
Larry

Thanks Alan.

2/15/17       #7: working with acrylic ...
Larry

Follow up information. Extruded acrylic does the craze thing, cast does not. Also the edges have to be heat polished for it to happen. We did a test run and found it to be true.
Used to be cast was a lot more expensive, not true now. It is more variable in thickness but for what we use it for, doesn't matter. Only cast from now on. We also use a lot of PETG for grocery store work. much better durability than acrylic. Heat forms nicely.

2/16/17       #8: working with acrylic ...
Pat Gilbert

Larry

Just out of curiosity how are you heat forming this material?

2/16/17       #9: working with acrylic ...
Larry

For PETG we have the typical strip heater to do angle bends and also have an oven for larger parts up to 3 x 8'. Forms are CNC'd, the forms have small holes drilled at the low points so the vacuum will pull the plastic in. There are limits as to how deep you can draw before the plastic becomes too thin. Since we are not terribly well set up the procedure looks like a Chinese fire drill. You have to be fast before the plastic starts to cool. Put the plastic in the frame before heating it. We use a 2" PVC pipe from the 40hp vacuum pump.


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