Acrylic Bending Jig

thingiverse

We decided to make our own acrylic bending jigs in-house instead of replacing them at our school shop. The project we're sharing here is basic but meets our needs perfectly. Print Settings Printer: Just Add Sharks Blacknose (Chinese A3 Laser Cutter) Post-Printing Assembly After cutting the two sides, hand skills take over. We cut two identical 12mm birch ply pieces on the table saw. Finding the center made it easier to line up the 'legs' of each side with the bottom board. Screwing in all the side screws and inserting the top half were next steps. A mark was made through the bottom hole in the middle of the top half, and a 6mm splined dowel was used as a pivot. This process was repeated on the other side, leaving a slight gap under the top half for easy pivoting. We found that positioning the gap close to the edge worked well. Pivoting the top half to 90° revealed a mark in the center through the arc on one side, where an 8.5mm hole needed to be drilled for the pivot lock, about 40-50mm deep. A 6mm allen key was used to tighten in the 6mm nut insert, and then everything was reassembled with the pivot stop assembly screwed into the nut inset through the pivot arc. The pivot lock consists of a M6 x 30mm machine screw, some washers, a M6 wing nut, and a M6 Nyloc nut.