Working with plastic Acrylic plastics form a versatile group of materials for making plastic items. They can be clear or coloured and can easily be cut, drilled and filed into different shapes. Acrylic plastic comes in transparent and opaque sheets, rods or tubes in a wide variety of colours.


Types of plastic


Plastics can be found in many shapes and sizes. Plastic containers are the most common forms of plastic you can find. Plastic is easily melted and moulded into something new. Plastic can be recycled.


Marking plastics


Plastic can be marked with the same things as paper and card, apart from a pencil. Felt-tipped pens and markers are especially suitable for marking plastic.


Bending and moulding plastics


Plastic can easily be bent or moulded when heated. When plastic is melted it becomes liquid, which can then be poured into any shaped mould.


Heat the section that needs to be bent. Once it is cool again, the plastic will remain in that position.


Cutting plastics


Cutting plastic is quite easy. Tools used for cutting plastics are scissors, craft knives, scalpels and carpet knives. Wood saws can also be used when cutting harder plastics like tubes.


164 Tools for Technology


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38