Thread: Where do I find "plastics" for guards

Look in the Yellow Pages for - Plastics Wholesalers

In newcastle there is a company that has the lot and will cut to size - "Specialised Plastics Wholesale"

Windscreens O'brien here locally but in Vic go to a windscreen/glass repair business. Generally the 10mm perspex needed for guards etc can be had at a reasonable price as offcuts.


Cheers,

James

I bought some diffuser materiel from a small plastics shop is Fyshwick ACT. They had a great scrap bin - anything 300mm square and below or strips less than 100 wide they ditched. Said I could have what I wanted so I got some nice 300 mm square bits of perspex and a few 1200 by 90mm strips from 6 to 10 mm. This shop fabricates rather than just sells plastic so you should look for a shop which makes plastic stuff to order - they have a lot more offcuts.

Pusser

Try Acrylic Sheet Form in Tullamarine. May be able to get some offcuts if lucky. There are also a few suppliers in Airpot west but can't remeber names.

I have also used Acrylic Sheet Form in Tullamarine and found them quite helpful.
They drilled out a small sheet for me for a router base after I took a template in and cost was reasonable

There is a product called Lexan by GE, basically a bullet proof perspex, maybe ask around for scraps of that. Ideal for machine guards if flying debri is a problem.

Cheers,

Thanks for these suggestions.

I was aware of various products but could not find a ready source for them and this will help a little.

Do they also have the adhesives that join pieces together? They apparently partially dissolve the materials when being joined to make a rapid and relatively good bond.

At times the most difficult part of our hobby seems to be sourcing materials. For example I want to try vacuum veneering and it seems that about the only source of materials readily identifiable is www.joewoodworker.com. However this appears to limit me to venturi style vacuum systems. Trying to find a small suitable vacuum pump, particularly when I know very little about them, is also proving difficult.

It would be great to have a "Best of the Best" supplier section so we don't need to repeat these requests for supplier information.

Anyway I will keep plodding along - I'll just have to get a yellowpages.

Terry

Terry, you obviously have access to the Internet, the Yellow Pages are on the Internethttp://www.yellowpages.com.au/siteEn...7.yp2002_22121

As regards to vacumm pumps, have you tried a query in Google?

http://www.google.com/search?q=vacuu...L_enAU230AU230

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&r...er&btnG=Search

Whilst I certainly don't want to discourage you from asking questions, there is an old (and true) saying "God helps those that help themselves"

Originally Posted by Big Shed

there is an old (and true) saying "God helps those that help themselves"

That's very true and I helped myself, on a tip of from Scooter, when a factory had closed down and had two skips full of plastic ofcuts outside.

Still have some left.



Peter.

Big shed,

Good suggestions. I sometimes forget about the yellowpages on the internet however the search capability seems to be much better now than when I last used it.

The vacuum pumps are more difficult. I had already googled this in a variety of ways however I was wanting a pump suitable for a woodworking application and it is not apparent from the results of the search as to whether they are suitable. Most of the results relate to high vacuum or industrial applications.

I had hoped that someone within the forum had more specific knowledge. Previous threads directed me to businesses that no longer appear to exist.

Even searching for suppliers of plastic materials is difficult - almost all of the organisations I scanned appear to be fabricators rather then retailers of small amounts of product. Cadging a few bits of acrylic or perspex or polycarbonate wasn't going to solve the adhesive problem and unfortunately "plastics" is such a generic term that I wasn't letting me identify good options.

Once again I had thought that others would have tried to use these materials for similar applications and there would possibly be a body of knowledge that would simplfy my search.

I have some good suggestions above and will follow through - it is just going to take a bit more time than I had hoped.

Terry

Har 616
Fabricators are good for plastic - they normally have heaps of offcuts. Retail oulets want to sell plastic by the square metre and it is pricy in any cut size.

pusser

Originally Posted by har616

Big shed,

Good suggestions. I sometimes forget about the yellowpages on the internet however the search capability seems to be much better now than when I last used it.

The vacuum pumps are more difficult. I had already googled this in a variety of ways however I was wanting a pump suitable for a woodworking application and it is not apparent from the results of the search as to whether they are suitable. Most of the results relate to high vacuum or industrial applications.

I had hoped that someone within the forum had more specific knowledge. Previous threads directed me to businesses that no longer appear to exist.

Even searching for suppliers of plastic materials is difficult - almost all of the organisations I scanned appear to be fabricators rather then retailers of small amounts of product. Cadging a few bits of acrylic or perspex or polycarbonate wasn't going to solve the adhesive problem and unfortunately "plastics" is such a generic term that I wasn't letting me identify good options.

Once again I had thought that others would have tried to use these materials for similar applications and there would possibly be a body of knowledge that would simplfy my search.

I have some good suggestions above and will follow through - it is just going to take a bit more time than I had hoped.

Terry

There have been smallish vac pumps on ebay for a while, intended as refrigeration system evac pumps, but probably capable of pumping down a reasonable area. May be worth a search under vacuum anyway. I ditched a 1/2 horse one about 5 years ago after hoarding it for 8 years, now I want to get one for vac bleeding car brakes.

Missed a pair of 110V ones a couple of weeks back, but there are plenty of 240V at the moment from $265 BIN in Sydney 1/3HP 4.2CFM 29 in Hg.

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI....ksid=p3907.m29

Originally Posted by Andy Mac

There is a product called Lexan by GE, basically a bullet proof perspex, maybe ask around for scraps of that. Ideal for machine guards if flying debri is a problem.

I found a 900 x 600 piece of this stuff (polycarbonate) in the bin at work and have used it to make heaps of things like the cowling for this TS blade guard



Nose guard for a chainsaw mill.


An a clutch cover guard for a CS.


It also forms the pressure washers for the height adjustment cams on my CS mill. They are distorting after a couple of months use but I can easily cut out a new set when I need to.

Although it does not glue well it can be bent without heating and cut it with a hole saw, tin snips and pop-rivetted it like sheetmetal. It's much more vibration resistant than perspex. Only problem is availability and price!

As already mentioned, if you have a choice, polycarbonate (Lexan in the US) would be a better choice than acrylic (Perspex).

Can use mechanical fasteners, or "solvent weld" pieces together. Don't know the solvents offhand but as mentioned wouldn't be too hard to find the info on the net. Here's a start.


Cheers................Sean