An acrylic sheet is a form of thermoplastic material with outstanding strength, stiffness, lightweight and high optical clarity. This sort of plastic sheet acts as glass and is highly shatter-resistant. Well, it has another name, too, Plexiglass! Plexiglass is a casual way of referring to clear-cast acrylic sheets, but today both terms are used interchangeably.
Plexiglass has performance characteristics like being an accessible material to be fabricated and machine, strong and bonds quickly and well with solvents and adhesives. It also has good dimensional stability and excellent weathering.
Further, Acrylic sheet possesses excellent and similar qualities to glass, such as clarity, transparency and brilliance. However, it is much lighter in weight, and it shatters resistance.
With various applications of acrylic sheets ranging from displays and shelves to aquariums, home tables, kitchen backsplashes, and many Do It Yourself (DIY) acrylic handcrafts, acrylic plastics provide outstanding durability, versatility and aesthetic qualities. Discussed below are the five best uses of plexiglass for DIY home projects.
Use it as Shelves [Easy DIY curved shelves]
As mentioned earlier, acrylic sheets possess excellent performance characteristics that enhance its versatility in various applications. One of those important areas of its applications is its usefulness as shelves. Plexiglass can be easily bent and cut using home tools to form unique wall shelves shape and designs.
To turn and fabricating plexiglass into a wall shelf at home requires two major processes. The first one is cutting, and the other is bending or curving.
Cutting an acrylic sheet at home requires a basic tool such as a scoring knife. The process is extremely simple to accomplish with the basic tools at home.
To cut plexiglass at home with a scoring knife, the following procedures should be implemented:
- Take out your marker and mark the area you want to cut, now cut it by placing a ruler-straight against the line.
- Now, with the help of a scoring knife make a deep cut in the area, you want to cut down.
- Find some straight edge and place the cut-line right above the edge, usually, an edge of a table is perfect for this task so you don’t have to carry heavy glass all around, make sure the cut is facing upwards.
- Through a secure and balanced motion, quickly bend the glass sheet over the edge. Use both your hands for clean and firm cutting.
On other hand, bending acrylic sheets requires the use of basic tools such as a butane torch, quick release bar clips, and straight edge piece of wood and protective equipment like a welding glove. The following procedures should be followed to bend acrylic sheets at home:
- Use a ruler to mark the area to bend
- Clamp your plexiglass to your work surface under a straight edge.
- Apply heat evenly along the blend line with the butane torch.
- Make sure to apply even heat throughout the bend line, during this process, press down the mark point of a sheet in a steady motion. Then position the glass sheet over the edge of the table carefully, maintaining the cut side facing upwards.
- When you have your sheet at the required angle, hold it for seconds until it becomes very solid again.
Fibreglass as an Alternative Material for Home Projects
While acrylic sheets offer a range of possibilities for DIY projects, it’s also worth considering other materials that can bring durability and aesthetic appeal to your home. One such material is fibreglass, which is particularly useful in exterior door replacements.
Fibreglass front doors replacement offers several key benefits:
- Strength: Fibreglass doors are known for their durability and ability to withstand varying weather conditions without warping or deteriorating.
- Insulation: These doors provide excellent insulation, helping to maintain the temperature inside your home and potentially reducing energy costs.
- Versatility in Design: Fibreglass doors can mimic the look of natural wood or other materials, allowing for a wide range of aesthetic options.
- Low Maintenance: Unlike some other materials, fibreglass doesn’t require frequent repainting and is resistant to scratches and dents.
When comparing plexiglass vs fibreglass, each material has its unique advantages. Plexiglass is versatile and excellent for creating transparent structures like aquariums and shelves.
On the other hand, fibreglass is robust and superior for products that require insulation and durability, like exterior doors.
Use it to Design your own aquarium with desired size and dimensions
Are you the one who wished to have an aquarium that you have constructed and styled with your hands? Well, firstly you need to understand its structure! An aquarium is a transparent box, whose all sides or at least one of the sides is transparent or you can say, made with glass. This is an area where you can keep aquatic animals like reptiles, fishes, or any other aquatic plant. It is abundantly used by fish keepers to fish and invertebrates. You can easily set up your own aquarium at home with a unique and suitable design for your use.
Like every other aquarium setting, the very first thing in constructing up an aquarium is to make a rough sketch in your mind. Sketch about its design and the contents you wished to keep in your aquarium. This is very important as it will decide what size you need, and how much it will cost you in the long run. It is more cost-effective and convenient to design your own aquarium because buying a readymade aquarium might be costly.
Use it to Design your own table with acrylic sporting design and tabletop [All acrylic coffee table]
Owing to the performance characteristics of acrylic sheets such as easy bending to different shapes, you can easily design your own table and its top with acrylic sheets. Acrylic tables are clearer, transparent, and much more shatter-resistant than glass. You don’t need to worry about it breaking especially if you have kids at home. You can easily make your own table and all forms of coffee table at home by simply going through certain simple procedures. You can easily develop your own acrylic table in no time as it requires no tools. All you need is an acrylic sheet, cardboard, scissors, a knife, a cutting mat and a roll of double side tape.
Use it to Design your Kitchen Backsplash
You can easily set up your kitchen backsplash with acrylic sheets at a fairly affordable cost and very much conveniently. Owing to special qualities of acrylic sheets such as high reflective surface, high gloss finish, high resistance to U-V light, non-toxicity and easy maintainability, acrylic sheets have been branded as one of the best materials for a good kitchen backsplash. This has given plexiglass the ability to stand out and made it highly durable and shatter-resistant.
DIY acrylic handcrafts
There are many Do It Yourself (DIY) homemade projects and handicrafts that you can easily design and set up with acrylic sheets. The unique qualities and excellent performance characteristics of acrylic sheets have been the primary reason why this can be easily achieved. Apart from the aforementioned DIY handcraft projects that were mentioned earlier, there are many DIY handcraft projects that can be easily set up with acrylic sheets. Examples include modern floating photo frames, acrylic office organization, tribal art-inspired lanterns, wall-mounted calendars, terrarium tables and many more. This proves the versatility of acrylic sheets.
Where to buy original acrylic sheets
To be able to achieve all the DIY handcraft projects discussed earlier, the first requirements of all the projects are to get cost-effective acrylic sheets. You can quickly get your plexiglass at a very low cost at Fab Glass and Mirror, which provides top-quality plexiglass sheets that you can buy to carry on several DIY home projects to amaze everybody about your own made crafts.
POSTED BY 
