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Sanding acrylic?

T

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Anyone know if I am going to run into any problems if I sand (lap) my acrylic waterblock tops? Had good luck so far with copper, silver, and stainless steel. I want to eliminate the wavyness in the sides of the waterblock top. Will I be able to get a clear surface with like 2000 grit W&D or will I also have to buff out the acrylic when done sanding?
 
No matter what you do, it'll look foggy.

After you sand it, you'll want to hit it with a blow torch to "shine" the edges.

I'm not sure what the process is called, but that's how they do the acrylic cases.
 
You will have to buff it, but buffing is easier than sanding, IMO.

I've had a lot of luck with sanding... flat file-400-600-1000-1500-2000 then polished with the novus 3 step plastic polishes. You can get a very flat, smooth, reflective polish out of the edges of acrylic this way, in my experience.

Using a torch is called flame polishing and I'm not a huge fan of the result, either.

I was pretty sure I'm not the only guy to have done this so I googled and saw that linear added similar comments to his acrylic faq:

http://case-mods.linear1.org/acrylic-lexan-and-plastics-faq/

(Q: Can I polish up the edges of my piece? )
 
You should be able to buff it and make it clear again. I have seen it done. ;)

 
My dad owns a manufacturing company that does sunroofs for corvettes and honda del sols, and the windjammers

After cutting the shapes, they sand the edges then polish it, and the finish is very nice, you cant even tell that someone used a router on that part
 
So if I sand to say 2,000 grit will I still have to use a buffing wheel to get the crystal clear look? The Aqua Computer blocks I have now are pretty clear already, but you can definitely tell they were milled on the sides upon close inspection. My main concern is that I am planning on drilling the arylic blocks to fit a small LED into each of them and am concerned how it will look with the rough edges.

Here are some pics of what I am working with.


NBTwinPlexScrew2.jpg




NBMounted1.jpg
 
oh hell, if you're planning on inserting an LED into the block. I'd say sand the sides with 100 grit to give it a nice haze for the light from the LED to refract off of, so your block will glow around the edges.
 
For images of reflective acrylic surfaces, you can check out the Orac3. The entire case is primarily made of acrylic, and a lot of it was custom cut, so a lot of the edges has to be cleaned, sanded, and then polished (buffed) to become 100% clear again.

I think he got a dremel kit (comes with a buff pad, and liquid which I assume is the key to getting it back to clear).
 
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