Tutorial Tuesday
Tutorial Tuesday
Fun Project of the day
projects,DIY,plexiglass fun,powertools
Hello again!
I hope you all had a wonderful Canada day and happy 4th of July to our American friends! Today we are going to go through a tutorial on how to frost plexiglass and add a logo/design.
Which is exactly what we did today, here we go!
Tools/Equipment needed:
- 1/4 inch plexiglass we used a 4x6 sheet
- safety glasses
- gloves
- hearing protection
- measuring tape
- sharpie
- straightedge we used a level
- knife
- orbital sander we used black and decker
- 120 fine sandpaper
- whatever logo or design you wanted
- Dremel we used a Dremel 3000
- carving bit that comes with it
- magic eraser
- lint free cloth
Approximate time to complete- 3 Hours
Step 1
Mark out the plexiglass with a sharpie where you want your design to fit
Step 2
Using your knife score the sharpie marks where you want the design to fit
Step 3
Remove the protective plastic coating on the sheet. You should still be left with the plastic coating in the area where you wanted your design to sit
Step 4
sand the entire side of the sheet being careful around the edges where the plastic is still on. Don't worry if it isn't perfect it's pretty hard to see if you missed any spots right now but you will go back over it later.
we used a 120 grit sandpaper after doing some research and I went through 2.5 sanding sheets. There's this helpful YouTube video to help you decide which frosted look you are going for. Since we are lighting our plexiglass up with LED lights we wanted a smooth finish.
Step 5
Get a friend to help you flip over the sheet and don't forget to wear your gloves! Plexiglass may not look or feel sharp, but trust me it is. The slices on my hand are proof of its destructive capabilities.
Step 6
Repeat steps 1 to 4 on the other side
Step 7
Remember that middle piece of plastic coating? mark with a sharpie just outside the plastic on the 4 sides so you know where your centre is. You don't want to have your design not centred! Unless you do, then please disregard this little bit of information...remove the plastic coating on both sides
Step 8
Place your design underneath the plexiglass and centre it (or don't) and remember gloves or get help lifting it because not only does it slice it also can scratch your skin and give you a nice little rug burn. I'll let you figure out how I know that
Step 9
Trace your design onto the plexiglass with a sharpie. I found that looking down directly into the design when tracing it gave the best results. If you don't look straight down at your design it could end up lopsided and its a pain to have to redo your entire design.This, however, was not an issue for me so who knows I might just be crazy
Step 10
Pee break/smoke break/eating break whatever you want to do, this is probably a good time to do it, because you will need your full concentration on the next step.
Step 11
Get out your Dremel and make sure you have lots of room to move around in. A well-lit area is also a good idea.
Use the bit that has the little ball at the end in your kit. Now I had a heck of a time figuring out how to insert the bit into the Dremel because I had never used one before. If you are in the same boat keep reading if not skip on to step 12...
Still with me? Ok so at first I thought they had given me the wrong sized collet for the unit but as it turns out there is a way to insert it. So instead of hurling every curse word you can think of at it because the damn thing won't bloody fit here's what you do. Push the little blue button with the lock on it and remove the end piece. Pop out the collet with the pokey end of the small crescent wrench they give you in the set. Insert the bit in the top of the piece you removed then slide the collet inside the part you removed then put the whole thing back together. Make sure to give it a bit of a twist with the crescent just to make sure it's tightened properly. You don't want it being unbalanced
Step 12
I had the setting set to 6 on my Dremel, I found it worked best for me but if you haven't worked with this kind of material before, try it on a test piece first. Most places will give you a small piece of plexiglass as scrap for you to use.
Take your time.
If you rush its hard to fix any mistakes, I found cutting on the sharpie mark till it disappeared was the easiest way to know if I had made any mistakes. Also, it's worth mentioning, like most tools let them do the work. I barely had to push on the Dremel, it flowed nicely at the setting I was on. A few times I pushed a little too hard and I dug way deeper than I meant to. Let's hope it doesn't show up!
Step 13
You should be done carving your design! Congrats! I'm sure it looks amazing. If you still have some sharpie marks showing now is a great time to get out that magic eraser and wipe it off. I wonder how we ever managed before these little things. They are honestly amazing little sponges that take off everything! Great especially when you have little monsters running around.
Get someone to help you stand it up so you can look to see if you missed any spots with the sandpaper. If you did now is the most excellent time to fix it. When you are for sure done and are super happy with how it looks wipe it down with your rag to remove all the dust and you're done!
Well, that's all for the plexiglass. We haven't done the lights yet but if you wanted to know how we end up doing it let us know in the comments and we can do a tutorial on that as well! I hope this was easy to follow and when you try it you get amazing results and don't feel like you wasted 3 hours of your life you won't ever get back
Talk to you guys later let us know how your project goes!