Posted by x-ian on 27, 2001 at 8:05 PM:
In Reply to: For people looking for plastic/lexan etc... posted by bernard on 27, 2001 at 2:25 AM:
: I work in a retail store, and we just recently took down some displays that had big metal brackets and attached to it were large pieces of transparent plastic (about 24" x 100" approx, and about 1/4" thick). Since we weren't sure how to properly dispose of these awkward pieces they've been sitting in our back room for a while now, until one day I thought to myself, "hey, if that plastic will CUT, it'll be great to cover my control panel." The plastic has a greenish-yellowish color to it, but I thought that might make it look kinda neat. So one day I came in and dismantled the metal stuff from the plastic, and I ended up with 2 large pieces, which I took home. We tried cutting it with a regular wood saw just to see if it WOULD cut, and it seemed to do fine, so we tried a hand-held jigsaw, and that went through it with no problem but it's hard to make a straight cut with the jigsaw, so we cut it on a table saw, and it worked excellent. I cut 2 pieces, one for the control panel and another for a marquee glass. The pieces cut with no problem and did not have any tendency to crack at all. I've got one piece attached to the control panel with carriage bolts and I'm now drilling out the holes for my controls, and even when the drill jerks (catches on the metal control panel) sometimes the plastic remains in tact and makes nice holes.
: If anyone is interested, I have the other large piece still, and I might be able to get my hands on some more. Only problem with the stuff is finding a section that's free from scuffs/scratches/holes (from the metal that was attached to it), but useable sections exist in it. Drop me a line, and maybe we can work something out, I could send you some uncut sections, or perhaps even send some custom-cut pieces tailored to your needs.
: I'm going to try to take a picture or two of the plastic, and post it up on my website...if you want to see it try here :
: http://homepage.fcgnetworks.net/bernard/plastic
: -bernard