Acrylic is used in the creation of a variety of products that are popular on the market today. If your company offers acrylic fabrication services to your customers, you know how important it is to get items fabricated on schedule. Bottlenecks in the fabrication process can result in a loss of money, and potentially a loss of clients.
Here are three common bottlenecks that might be slowing your acrylic fabrication, and some simple ways you can eliminate these delays in the future.
1. Improperly-sized cutting blades.
When evaluating the time it takes to fabricate acrylic products, you should start looking for unnecessary delays at the cutting blade. Projects that require thicker acrylic products can get off schedule when your cutting blades aren't equipped to handle these sturdy materials. If you are using a blade that has a small diameter, you are reducing the speed with which your cutting machines can process thick acrylic.
Investing in a blade with a larger diameter will help speed up your cuts. A good rule of thumb to follow when trying to determine optimal blade diameter is to ensure that the blade will protrude at least one-quarter inch from the acrylic sheet during cutting.
2. Slow finishing processes.
Once your acrylic sheets have been cut, the edges must be finished to eliminate any rough areas from the cut surface. There are many different ways to finish cut acrylic, and a finishing process that is too slow for your application could be causing your fabrication projects to bottleneck.
Instead of relying on sanding or buffing, which can be time-consuming to complete, you should offer your customers that need a quick turnaround on their fabricated acrylic projects the option of investing in flame polishing instead. Flame polishing does come at an added cost (since you have to invest in specialized equipment and fuel for the torch), but it allows you to finish cut acrylic edges at the rate of approximately 3 to 4 inches per second.
3. Melting during cutting.
Acrylic sheets must be handled carefully during the cutting process to ensure that excessive heat doesn't result in the melting of the acrylic. If you are experiencing some melting during cutting, the need to re-cut melted sheets could be bottlenecking your fabrication projects.
You should try to address the melting problem by checking the tip and raking angle. The tip angle should be 60 degrees, and the rake angle anywhere between 0 and 4 degrees to minimize the risk of melting.
Identifying and addressing common bottlenecks will help you streamline your acrylic fabrications in the future.