I received my acrylic scoring tool in the mail, and it works SOOO much better than a utility knife. I'm sure saws would still work better and easier, but the scoring tool at least still allows me to move forward. I cut a 2-inch wide piece to be part of my PSU cover, bent it in my acrylic bender, and put it into place for a test fit. The aluminum shelf on the back will eventually be taped into place, with the shroud able to be secured down. I love the feeling of having available the tools needed to do a job (whether basic or advanced tools).
I decided to experiment a little. I have seen build logs where people have set a knurled nut into acrylic by heating it with a soldering iron, basically heating it up until it melts itself into place. Since that works, why couldn't I do the same with other metal objects? I'm pretty sure that I will have an acrylic panel with fans, so maybe I could melt the wire mesh into the acrylic… I grabbed a scrap piece of acrylic, cut a small piece of mesh, and started experimenting. It actually work fairly well, although slowly, as I had to heat up each piece of the metal wire mesh as I went along. I only did a couple inches, but this showed me it would work. Then I tried warming the acrylic up with my bender before melting in the mesh. And that worked even better in getting the mesh to be more inset into the acrylic (basically flush!) You can see in the pic below - the left side is the soldering iron only, and the right side is the warmed acrylic plus the soldering iron. (I only did both sides for a short distance and not the entire length of the scrap.) I assume you could warm the acrylic with a heat gun or hair dryer as alternate options. I'm excited about this and will be trying it in at least a couple places on my panels.
Karrek enters his pyro phase. The hair dryer won't work. I'd hate to see the hair dried by something that can melt plastic.
