Bending Acrylic Tutorial

Did you know that acrylic can be bent and shaped into different things! This article is going to talk about different ways to bend acrylic and we will give you a link to a file that you can make to get your creativity flowing! 

To start with you will need a heat gun, heat press or some way to heat the acrylic up. I have used different things to heat it with but find that the easiest and cheapest is the heat gun. I don’t have a favorite brand. As long as it heats up acrylic it will work well.

You will also want different things to bend the heated acrylic on. For this you can use several different items from around the house or from your workshop. I like using things like glass cups, bottles, molds for other things, pencils or even wood!  Experiment using different things to see how it makes the acrylic look. 

It is also important to have a pair of heat resistant gloves because the acrylic gets really hot. Needle nose pliers are very helpful for shaping the acrylic.

It is also important to have a pair of heat resistant gloves because the acrylic gets really hot.  

Needle nose pliers are very helpful for shaping the acrylic.

So lets get started!

For this tutorial i am going to make the acrylic into a lotus candle holder.  

To start I cut out the different layer shapes of the flower on my laser. 

I am going to use the heat press to heat up the large Lilly pad pieces first. 

Once they are pliable I will drape them over a bumpy mold. I want to just give them a tiny bit of texture. 

For the next pieces of the candle holder, the flower parts, I will use a small parfait glass that is the right size for the hole I want in the middle to hold a tea candle. 

I place the flower acrylic piece on top of the glass and heat it up using the heat gun. This takes about 1 minute to become totally pliable. Then I take and push the acrylic down over the top of the glass. 

I found that also using the bottom of the glass and bending the acrylic up helped to keep the space for the candle just right. Continue this until all the flower pieces are bent the way you would like them to be.

This acrylic is really hot so make sure to use heat resistance gloves to bend and hold it.  

After all the pieces are bent use some kind of glue to hold it all together. Weld on gel acrylic adhesive gel is perfect for this project since it is acrylic to acrylic that needs to be glued. It makes a great seal when adhering acrylic to acrylic.  

That is all there is too it! We now have a great Lotus Flower Candle Holder!  

Let’s put a candle in it and see how it all turned out! 

 

Frameless candles work great for these kind of candle holders.

Oh, I love it! The flame even reflects off of the acrylic!

The file to make this lotus flower candle holder yourself can be found here.

Make sure you tag us on social media @craftclosetsupply when you make it, so that we can see!