Has anyone ever made a CURVED panel for anything?

[Dolphinicus]

Not just for a modular synth or something near that, but for anything?  I came up with the idea yesterday, of building my MIDIbox SEQ into a curved wood panel. 

Such that with the panel mounted into it's cabinet, looking down at it, it'd be curving to the inside of the panel, from top to bottom. :)

I'm just in the midst of trying to find out the best way to make it.  Curving the 1/4" to 5/16" thick wood, or making it out of sheets of veneer, glued together, to bring it up to the required thickness.  Shall see. :)

Curious as to whether anyone's done anything like that. :)

(After seeing so many other user's machine's photos here, I want something different. :D )

[stryd_one]

I've seen dudes do similar making skateboards. You have to use some pretty serious equipment to curve it well.

I was thinking the other day about curved cases too... I came to the conclusion that fibreglass might be the best way to go, but my glassing skills are pretty damn limited...

[DrBunsen]

Or you could try to find a broken bass drum shell and hacksaw it down

[Mr modnaR]

shouldn't be too hard to do, either carve it out of a thicker block of wood, or else make a two part 'mold' and laminate several layers of thin stuff. time consuming, yes, but worth it imho.

[TheAncientOne]

I've done a few things like this, whilst making stage props. For prototyping you could buy a piece of the 'bendy MDF' which is 6mm MDF with spline slots on the back it will simply bend to shape, but has little structural strength. It might be useable if back filled with a reasonable resin once on place, but I personally wouldn't want to risk all the effort. It would be better than card though.

For a wood panel I'd go with the layers of veneer or very thin ply. In my case I made formers by stacking 'bread and butter' sections of 18mm MDF, all sized from a template with a router using a guide. The template was pinned to the sections through 10mm holes, drilled first through another, metal template, and the final stack done by using lengths of 10mm threaded rod through the whole lot. A run over with the sander smoothes the whole, (heavy!), thing off. I was doing a short production run, so perhaps for a simple panel you could freehand it. I used a slow setting glue, I had some Aerodux, (cheap due to being government surplus), but there are variants. This gave me plenty time to get all the sticky bits lines up and clamped. For clamps we used bits of scrap slotted angle ('Dexion'), some bits of scrap softwood, and yet more threaded rod, (also known as 'studding;). Trick is to start at the middle of the curve and work outwards. Sadly, I've not got any pictures. Remember to cross grain the plys!

HTH

Mike

[SLP]

I've just discovered a special kind of plexiglass.

It's 2-5 mm thick,

and you are able to bend it if you heat it up a bit.

you've just got to fix one end (bench vice), take a piece of round wood.

with the diameter you want, take a small flamer, heat it up and bend it over the wood.

I don't have any experience with this stuff, but I think it shouldn't be that difficult to do.

matthias

[Mr modnaR]

iirc all plexi can be bent like this, though it is hard to get an even curve, unless you have a really nicely made former.

[Jidis]

FWIW, I've done toner transfers to 1/4" plexiglas and plastic (countertop) laminate. If you're not set on using wood, you can build a substrate out of whatever you can make most easily (even pieces of pre-curved molding), and bond to that with contact cement. RTurner and I were just talking about something I was trying to do with a concave curved panel, using aluminum flashing.

There's an actual "postforming" grade of plastic laminate which bends really easy, but I've wrapped a 180 degree turn at about a 4 inch diameter across a 19" rack width, with what's known as "vertical grade" (slightly thinner and cheaper than the regular stuff).

Bear in mind, some of the above takes a bunch of prior trial and error. The toner to plexi, and the heating/wrapping of countertop laminate both have a really short slice of time where they do their thing. Shorten the time and the toner doesn't stick, or the laminate cracks when you bend it. Lengthen the time and..... :o

George

PS- If you're talking "wide" curves (big enough to get you hands in) you should have a much easier time on the bending.

[DrBunsen]

You're better off using a heat gun than a flame on plexi IMHO.  Or putting the plexi and the mould into an oven.

[SLP]

You're better off using a heat gun than a flame on plexi IMHO.  Or putting the plexi and the mould into an oven.

I actually wanted to say "heat gun".... but you know what I've meant  :)

It shouldn't be a problem with the right tools.

I've seen people bending metal. Why shouldn't it work with plexiglass?

matthias

[Mr modnaR]

it will work wit plexi glass, but you have to be vey skilled to get a perfect result. possible problems include bubbles in the plexi caused by too much localised heating and an uneven curve due to heat source being too small. for a decent sized rack unit, i'd definitely recommend using an electric bar heater, rather than a hand held heat gun, but that's just me, and i'm fussy (especially around this time of year, "Bah! Humbug"  ;D)

[Jidis]

possible problems include bubbles in the plexi caused by too much localised heating

That's exactly what happened to me on the toner/ironing. It looked like soda bubbles. The part that worked looked great however, and I only did one or two little trials. It was also at a point when my toner technique and tools weren't all that great anyway. Could be better now.

???

Also, the bar heater you mentioned is what's recommended for postforming laminates in a book I've got ("Working with Plastic Laminates" by Cliffe & Adams). They mention building a jig with a Chromalox (sp?) heating element, like you have in the oven, only a straight rod shaped one. I did the 19" rack width with a heat gun, and it was indeed right at the edge of the maximum width (maybe actually beyond). Not sure I'd do it again at such a tight curve without a better heat source.

George

[TheAncientOne]

The following link might be of use: http://billpentz.com/woodworking/PVC.html

I once made a glycerine tank for friends, we used domestic immersion heaters, without their thermostats, solid stae relays and a commercial temperature controller (recycled, old), and a cut down old domestic water tank, (rectangular metal one). An oil drum cut vertically in half might be good. You need a tray to support the plastic, which should have long hadles for lifting the plastci out of the very hot liquid.

Smaller bits can be put in the oven at home. With a bit of work you can blow, or vac form domes.

Just be careful, hot plastic can give nasty burns.

Mike

[DrBunsen]

i'd definitely recommend using an electric bar heater

Hey great idea!  They go for next to nothing at the charity shops, or you can find them on the street - especially now that it's summer down here :D