Perspex Sheets From Kitronik:
If you’re looking to buy Perspex sheets you’ve come to the right place. We stock a wide range of authentic Perspex® acrylic sheets in a variety of thicknesses, sheet sizes, finishes and colours. Most of our acrylic can be used on a laser cutter.
Perspex is a highly versatile material that is used for a wide variety of purposes, everything from; protecting works of art and museum exhibits, as a replacement for glass, model making, signs, artistic and architectural installation, as product enclosures, point of sale (POS), table tops, to name but a few.
Perspex Is Made In The UK:
Perspex acrylic sheets are manufactured in Newton Aycliffe here in the UK and are a premium acrylic which guarantees that it is always of the highest quality. Many people don’t realise that Perspex is actually a brand name, though it does seem to have become a generic term for acrylic sheets. The Perspex brand is owned by a company called Lucite International, who is the global leader in Acrylics.
Perspex cast acrylic was first manufactured in the UK in 1933, a year later it was trademarked. Since then it has become a household name and can be seen all around us.
Perspex Sheets Can Be Engraved, Bent Into Shape, Machined, And Routed:
Perspex is easy to engrave using either a pantograph, CNC engraving machine or laser cutter. You can also machine and route it provided you follow best practices. Further information on how to work with Perspex can be found on our Working with Materials resource.
Perspex is a thermoplastic which means that when it is heated above 140-180C it becomes flexible. This allows the material to be formed into the required shape or bent. Once the material cools below 85C it becomes rigid again.
It also possible to etch the surface of a Perspex sheet using a laser cutter. This can produce some very pleasing visual effects. The Perspex sheets have a protective film on both faces. If you are etching the material then this should be removed from the surface that is to be etched. If you are just laser cutting then this film can be left in place (if you wish) as it does not create any harmful gases when it is laser cut (unlike PVC).
Although Perspex is hard and rigid it can still be bent into shape. Not only can you use heat to make Perspex more malleable and thus make bending possible, you can also use kerf bending. Kerf bending/cutting is when you cut slots in a material that make it possible to bend the material. A laser cutter offers an ideal way of cutting slots in the Perspex. The cases in the above picture were made using kerf bending, you can find more information on these speakers perspex-amplifier-case-resources here.
If you want to get a perfectly smooth finish on the edge of a piece of machined Perspex a polishing technique can be used. Typical polishing techniques include diamond polishing and flame polishing.
Perspex Sheets As An Alternative To Glass:
Perspex is very light, it weighs less than half the weight of glass for the same sized sheet and is as transparent as optical glass. It’s also very strong and some types of acrylic have a much greater resistance to impact than glass does and when it does shatter, it does so more safely than glass. Perspex is also a better thermal insulator than glass and much easier to work with and shape.
