bending acrylic

StephenDownie · Post by **StephenDownie** » Sat Aug 27, 2005 2:36 pm

I usually bend my stems once I'm happy with the thickenss of the bit and it has a good airflow. Opening up the airway after you've bent it can be a big headache. Like the others have said bending the stem can do strange things to your lines so I like to leave a bit of room to play with before I move on to finishing.

Post by **KurtHuhn** » Sat Aug 27, 2005 7:02 pm

I get my stems tapered and mostly shaped, open up the airway, then bend them after 400-grit sanding. If I need to tweak the shape at that point, it's easy enough to resand to 400 without losing much time.

marks · Post by **marks** » Sat Aug 27, 2005 9:47 pm

I get the button near final dimensions, get the airway the way I like it and sand and polish the airway, then bend it and do a fair amount of shaping.

By the way, I bent one tonight. I used a tapered fluffy pipe cleaner doubled over and inserted it into the stem (from the button

) then I heated and bent the stem. It was a good experiment as this is a translucent acrylic rod and you can see the airway through the stem. I noticed no alteration of the airway by having this much pipe cleaner in the airway while bending.

That being said, I do a fair amount of shaping after bending (tried shaping then bending, and let's just say that I am better off doing it the way I am doing it now). If you do the vast majority of your shaping prior to bending, then I could see how you might have issues as was discussed earlier, although I do believe that having something in the airway helps keep it from getting smaller. Maybe not as much as I put in there, but something.

BTW, this has been an interesting discussion.