Wetsanding plexi!!!

[RangerDanger]

Since i love the "frosted" look i wnat to add to my psu bracket i made...how should i prep it, what grit, and how many repitions????

[DaveW]

I'd like to know this too, so i'm bumping this to help out. I want some Perspex frosted, is wet and dry the answer?

-Dave

[jdbnsn]

You will likely get a response from Tybrenis, he is the plexi guy. But I got a decent frosted look without wetsanding, I used 120 grit followed by 220 and that was it.

[RangerDanger]

yea thx man i just tried out out 150 grit and folowed it by 220 and it cam out pretty good....except am i suppose to display it on the sanded side or the not sanded side??

[jdbnsn]

Well it depends, will it be exposed and handled much? If so, you might want to test it. Try some wear and tear stuff like trying to rub the frost off with your hand. If it doesn't look like it will hold up, probably better to put the slick side out. But overall, I think it would look better with the sanded side out.

[RangerDanger]

k thx ur barely guna see it and it will be rarely touched....

[The Modfather]

The slick side will probably look better no matter what anyway, so display the unsanded side. As with anything, the more effort you put into it the better it'll look. Depending on the look you're going for you could use various grits from very coarse to wet sanding in the final stages, whatever look you want. I'd grab some scrap plexi and experiment and see what you think looks best. Better to learn that way.

[DaveW]

If you're illuminating it, then try gritting both sides, because then the grit will help the plexi to catch light. If you're sanding it, i assume you don't want as a window, more of a feature-i think gritting both sides with allow for a much more even glow when illuminating.

I haven't tried this out, but the theory seems sound enough.

-Dave

[guitar.child]

look at the case by defyant. he does bad ass frosted look andhe explains how to do it. peace.

[The Modfather]

No, if you are illuminating it from only one side then frosting both sides will have the exact opposite effect. If however, it's a thick sheet of plastic and you intend to drill holes in the sides and mount LEDs directly into the plastic then yes, frosting both sides would look best, but I'm just guessing that's not what you plan to do, is it?

[DaveW]

Actually what i'm planning to do is to have the LED's attached directly to the plastic, i figured if it was smooth, then the angle of incidence would be so great that a tiny amount of light would enter the plexi, so it wouldn't 'glow' which is the effect i'm looking for.

If i get a chance (which i probably won't) i'll mess around with spare plexi and see the effects.

-Dave

[The Modfather]

Ok, directly to the plexi in what way though? To the edges or to the side?

What I've done in the past is to use a rotary tool with a diamond burr tip and make notches in the plexi, then buffed those notches smooth so the light would pass through, this puts the light right IN the plexi so the etching pops. This is of course for etched windows with images and so forth, I've never tried it with frosted plexi.

[DaveW]

The LED's were going to be hot-glued to the face of the plexi at one side.

If you look at this pic here...

http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f39/DivW/P1010772.jpg

I was going to frost one side of the glass and glue the LED's behind the bars across the plexi. I'm aiming for a nice even glow across the plexi.

Ideas? You seem to know what you're doing with the plexi.

-Dave

[xmastree]

Just a thought, If the plexi is roughened, it will act as a diffuser. Why not mount some LEDs on the opposite side, shining through the power supply such that the components cast shadows on the plexi?

[The Modfather]

Well Xmas, if he wants an even glow that might not work out the way he wants.

From the looks of it, you're thinking of using 10 LED's? That might be overkill. If you just want a glow from inside, have you considered a clear 4" CCFL in there? Or two, they usually come in pairs in the 4" versions, one above and one below that window. I say clear but technically they're white. If you wanted you could use red ones but since the plexi is already red the white would be more intense. Of course everywhere else that you don't have the red plexi would just be white so, with two of 'em in there, red might be bright enough. Problem with red CCFL's is finding ones that don't actually look pink. :)

What you might do if you want to stick with LED's, is mount 4 of them in the front and back corners, at an angle, basically like so.

\ /
/ \

So there's an even dispersion of the light.

[DaveW]

The LED's and the Plexi are orange. You gave me an idea there-thanks for the advice :)

-Dave

[The Modfather]

cool, remember to show pics! :) I live for pics of mods! :)