Basics of Acrylic

► Acrylic and Plexiglass: These two refer to the same material, plexiglass is the chemical abbreviation of PMMA, PMMA is the raw material for the production of acrylic sheet.

► The most used acrylic is transparent sheet, which has high transmittance and convenient processing. It can be painted and colored printed, and it can be used instead of ordinary glass in some places.

► 1220*2440mm is the most common size at present. Generally, most of factories have multiple sets of production molds or can directly adjust equipment to achieve the purpose of size customization.  Because of the different production technology, the cast acrylic sheet has a larger limit on the size and the extruded acrylic sheet has a larger space in the length.

► Tolerances: Tolerances are inevitable in the production of any product.  Acrylic is no exception.  The tolerance is generally maintained at about ±0.2, among which the cast acrylic process is special, its tolerance increases with the increase of thickness size;  Extruded acrylic is more suitable for mass production because it is easy to control tolerance due to mature process.

► Regarding recycled acrylic: the utilization rate of acrylic will not reach 100%, there are some offcuts left after processing, these offcuts or scraps after recycling are re-entered the factory and processed into acrylic sheets after decomposing, they are known as mixed acrylic or recycled acrylic sheet. The quality of the recycled acrylic sheet is very different from the acrylic sheet made from the virgin material, such as failure to bending or polishing.

► Temperature: Acrylic is a kind of plastic products, so the temperature has a great effect on it. For example, if the local temperature is too high during cutting, it will cause the acrylic sheet melting and stick to the cutting blade.  The maximum operating temperature of the acrylic sheet should not be higher than 90℃.  It will be softened at about 113℃, and be decomposed when the temperature is slightly higher than 270℃.

► Types: It is divided into cast acrylic and extruded acrylic according to processing technology, it is divided into acrylic sheets with 100% virgin material and recycled acrylic sheet according to raw material , it is divided into transparent or clear acrylic sheets and colored acrylic sheets according to colors, it is divided into sanitary plate, flame retardant plate, sound insulation plate, diffusion plate, light guide plate and so on.  

► Acrylic sheet processing: general acrylic can be used for engraving, cutting, bonding, polishing, screen printing, bending, trimming, sandblasting, heat transfer printing, blister and so on.