Do you need an off-the-charts bend of transparent tubing? How about a 14° 200″ R (no tangents)? We received an interesting call this week. A school is preparing a model of a space station to be displayed at NASA.
Our little part in this was to scale down a 12 ft diameter (100 yd circumference) runway into an 8″ diameter clear rigid transparent bend. First, we used our proprietary software to generate the drawing. We choose CAB tubing due to its clarity and excellent transition temperatures. Butyrate bends well without pox marks, and in this case, clarity and dimensional stability were key. We chose an 8″OD x .125w tube to lighten the weight, increase clarity, and maintain rigidity.
Then, block it up, bend it, and remove the tangents. Typically we use universal forms for bends; we make thousands of variations. But when something is headed for a museum, model, or point of purchase display we will block it to fixed dimensions.
We’ll post the finished model when we get it!
In the meantime, here is our rendition of what the completed model will look like.
In the meantime . . .
