| is going to handle the temps. I've made quite a few molding patterns out of acrylic for some of the aluminum parts I've cast and have used a heat gun to form it - it takes a lot of heat to get it to the point where it can be formed and have found that if you get carried away with the heat it appears to cause gases to expand within the material which create bubbles. You have a lot of leeway between hot enough to make formable vs. cooking and making bubbles. But that's somewhere in temp ranges a lot higher than what it will see in an engine bay. Plexiglass is polycarbonate which really only softens up as it is heated and no bubbles ever form, but if you overheat it the surface will start to burn and char. But again, those are temps much higher than what it will see in the engine bay. Heat is definately the one main thing working against these materials - I just wonder how long they will hold this nice clear appearance before they turn into that brownish/yellow haze you see on cars with plastic headlight lenses. :-/ Even so, I've made templates of all the parts and making up another set would go pretty quickly.
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[ agpowers@bellsouth.net ] Enthusiasts soon understand each other. --W. Irving.
Are you an enthusiast? If you are out to describe the truth, leave elegance to the tailor.
Albert Einstein
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