Tape-Hinge Acrylic Box Construction

By Sean Michael Ragan
Time Required: 1 hour

Print this Project

If you have a router and the means to cut a straight line with it, this trick for building a 5-sided acrylic box is considerably easier than the common slab-joint method, and gives better-looking results, to boot.

December 18, 2012, 10:48 pm PST

Parts

Wood screws, flat-head, short (2) For securing heel to push-stick.
wooden board,, nominal 1' thickness (1) at least as long as workpiece, at least as wide as finished box depth
Acrylic/plexiglass sheet, scrap no thicker than workpiece
Tape, clear polyethylene (1) plain masking tape can be used, as well, but the clear tape makes it easier to see where the tape is firmly sealed and where it is not.
Acrylic cement, capillary solvent (1)
Acrylic/plexiglass sheet (1) I used 3/32' thickness; thicker acrylic may require more elaborate cooling measures during the cutting operation.

Tools

90-degree V groove router bit
Countersink
Ear protection
Gloves
Goggles
Paintbrush
Router
Router table
Rubber band to temporarily secure parts for gluing
Standard drill bits
X-Acto knife
hand electric drill

Steps

Step #1: Start with the right size panel

NextPrev

Figure out how long, wide, and deep you want the finished box to be, measured on its outside edges. Call these X, Y, and Z.
The starting panel should have dimensions X + 2Z, Y + 2Z.
Cut your panel to the right dimensions, making sure to keep the sides straight and true.
Scoring and snapping will probably not be accurate enough. Alternately, you can...
use a router with an acrylic bit, a table saw with an acrylic blade, or a computer-controlled tool like a laser cutter to cut the panel yourself.
contract someone to cut the panel to size for you, or
don't cut the panel at all, and use the whole sheet as it came from the factory. (That's what I did.)

Conclusion

Adequate cooling of the cut is essential; a groove that gets too hot will have a bad finish and make a bad joint. The freezer trick I used here might work for you, but longer and/or deeper grooves may require spot cooling at the router bit itself. A vortex tube would be perfect, if you have one, but canned air might be an inexpensive substitute for small jobs.

Sean Michael Ragan

I am descended from 5,000 generations of tool-using primates. Also, I went to college and stuff. I am a long-time contributor to MAKE magazine and makezine.com. My work has also appeared in ReadyMade, c't – Magazin für Computertechnik, and The Wall Street Journal.