Acrylic Jewellery Course? Help!

[CJ57]

Caroline, a bangle that is still going strong after 40 years is good going. Just a shame you had to wait that long for the glue to degrade and create the patterns! The little book by Sarah Packington recommends Disperse dyes, which makes sense as they are used for polyester and synthetic fabrics, and (according to George Weil), 'plastic buttons'. The Procion MX are used for natural fibres like cotton and silk and there isn't so much heat involved, so probably wouldn't work, which is a pain as I have loads of them. Although it's worth a try. It could be that good old Dylon will work just as well as the Disperse dyes and would be less expensive. As you say, experimenting looks to be the way to go. Thanks again.

Tbh the glue degraded pretty quickly but the bangle is still here

[ps_bond]

Thanks again Peter. I do appreciate you taking the trouble to try and help me, and of course all who have replied to my question. I will probably go with the fabric dye for colouring - the formlabs posts are very interesting, but probably a step too far for me. Strangely enough, I appear to have bought the first book you recommend way back in 2006! Sadly I returned it - I have no memory of this, just what my Amazon account tells me - so whatever I was looking for at the time, it wasn't advice for working with acrylic. I do have his second book, (along with many others) but although there is a wealth of info in it, there isn't anything about acrylic, so presumably it's not just a rework of the earlier one. Given the difficulty I've had in finding any really useful books on working with acrylic (as opposed to resin), the idea of producing one myself is quite appealing! I don't know about blazing a trail, it will be more like smouldering slowly with lots of sputtering and going out. BTW, just peeked at your FB page, and all I can say is WOW!

The Formlab links were less to try and tempt you to the dark side of 3d printing and more to give info on which dyes are currently being used. Honest!

Just hoiked out my copy: It has a page on sanding and sawing (advocating hacksaw, bandsaw and disc sander); a page on laminating acrylic (steel torque plates + bake @ 170C, no adhesive); a simple drilled, sawn & filed cross; eardrops from laminated acrylic and an acrylic cabochon from laminate. Nothing desperately complex, admittedly.

If you're using a heatgun to bend acrylic, it's handy to have some formers to stick it into or around - MDF works. I've got some small photo backgrounds that I made that way. You can press form thinner sheets (heated, of course) using mouse pads in a press or vice; I used to use a lot of Kydex in up to 3mm thickness using this process. Never tried it with clear acrylic - Kydex is an ABS/acrylic blend - but it could be interesting. Flame polishing edges takes a light touch with a torch and you aren't likely to get it to work with a sawn edge, it'll need to be sanded first (otherwise it tends to char quite quickly after melting).

(And thank you )