STEP 2: Pumping iron – bending styrene
Continued ...
7. I dipped the beam into the boiling water for
about a minute, then pulled the loose side around
the template to bring the beam into shape until it
cooled.
7
After several disappointing attempts with my wife’s
hair dryer – the hair dryer finally quit its func-
tion and the styrene arch flipped back to almost a
straight – I was on the lookout for something reli-
able. I tried water – simple boiling water – and it
worked. So I put aside the test strip and grabbed
the real beam.
Turntable bridge - 5
STEP 2: Pumping iron – bending styrene
Continued ...
8. After the sty-
rene beam cools,
it will stay in its
designated shape,
and can be eas-
ily attached to
the turntable
bridge without any
tension.
8
First I cut the H-beam roughly to length, and securely at-
tached it to one side of the template with masking tape.
Next I used my fingers to bend the beam around the
curve of the template, and pulled it up on the oppos-
ing side of the template. With the beam stretched
around the template, I dipped it into the hot water for
one or two minutes. While in water, I kept on pulling
the free end of the beam. When the beam fit snugly
around the template, I knew the styrene had soft-
ened, so I removed the beam and template from the
water, and stretched the beam around the template
again with my fingers.
If the loose side of the beam didn’t stay close to the
template, I repeated the process until the beam kept
the desired shape
.
MRH-Sep 2014
