How to make lexan fit with the contours of a grill

[robchalmers]

depending how large the sheets are, put them in your oven (on bak-o-foil) at roughly 180F for half an hour to dry it. It'l bee a little softer as you pull it out, simple offer it up to the area you want and hold it at on end with a clamp then put a 60W lamp near it (3") then leave it to soften and with oven mits push over the con tour you want.

If you can remove the grille and lay it flat so gravity can help even better.

I use Lexan in RC car bodies and the only time I've got bubbling is when I've been doing very focused stuff with intense heat in one area, its best to keep the heat more generalised

[kgwedi]

Hey TexasCotton,
Sorry, I just saw your question about where to get Lexan. Almost any plastic dealer has a variety of plastics in sheet form. Even Lowe's sells Lexan sheets.
They are very expensive though.
Call around to the larger dealers, and go scrounge for offcuts the right size. Off cuts are harder for the dealers to sell, so sniveling and begging will usually get a discount.
Eden is almost exactly in the dead center of Texas, near San Angelo.

[neondriver]

I work for the company, SABIC I-P, who makes Lexan. It used to be owned by GE. Lexan also comes in many different thicknesses. Many are thin enough to form very easily like .2 mils. If you use a laptop, Lexan is used for the film covering a lot of laptop screens. It is very durable even when a thinner sheet material is used.

[d0sitmatr]

Originally Posted by mwebb

doesn't it just break ? if you bend it like that ?

I know this is a little late in answering this, but I work with lexan and plexi a lot in the window/screen business.
one job, we had to remove 2 side lights in a slider enclosure, and the person had used lexan to replace the glass when it broke from a mower throwing a rock.
anyways, each piece was 12' tall by 18" (1.5') across x .25 thick
I bent one of the sheets over in 1/2 and put my full body weight (170#) on it at the crease, even jumped up and down on it several times, all to no avail.
the stuff is incredibly durable.

[Dr. Jerryrigger]

Originally Posted by neondriver

If you use a laptop, Lexan is used for the film covering a lot of laptop screens.

Hey, I know a guy who works for Corning who claims the same thing, but that was about glass...
I think that Lexan is now more common than glass, as glass has glare, and is far more complicated to make in that thickness (if you know anything about making plate glass, it's similar, but they do it vertically ). Lexan it likely more durable with scratching being the only weakness, though it's amazing how flexible standard soda lime glass that thin can be.