I know this is an older thread, but I have and do, frost plexiglass. The best way to get an even frost, and not "harm" the plexi is this: Buy yourself a can of clear "wood" based acrylic sealer/clear coat and spary one side of it lightly. Wait until it drys, do not soak the plexi with it. Re-aply light coats for a thicker frost. It will take about 10 min per frost. Easy, simple, and when working with plexi, a very fast option. I have noticed that it does work best on flat peices, so if you have heated the plexi for bends, it might not be such an even frost on the bended areas. Hope this helps.
I have thought several times about going with such or plexi spray frosting - though the reason I have not done this yet, it that that I wasn't looking for just the matte look, I was looking for the effects it has when lighting up the plexi. It's to be behind a cut motive in my door, and the entire plexi is to be frosted. Would sprays and such, have this effect also? As far as I know, the effect is caused by light being refracted. The sprays and coating, as well as "etched appliqes" would would just partially *dim and diffuse* the light. Would be nice to know before I spent more money on this, it has costed me much more now, than buying new plexi and having it sand blasted.
This was of course my first thought, but there's two aspects that counter this. 1. It's hard to get around these parts. Plexi in general is hard to get here. 2. This will not be the only work I do on plexi, so I see it highly neccessary to learn how to do this successfully.
Try brake cleaner, just be sure to fit it with a spray painting nozzle, as the nozzle on brake cleaner makes heavy streams, as it's made for cleaning brakes.
i've just been playing wiht some material and if your going to blast it then I think you should try aluminium oxide. I don't have any but what i did have (glass bead/etc) wasn't abrasive enough to give a good frosting. I've got a can of spray drying so I'll let you know how that goes.
How did that spray work out? Had to buy some new plexi, the old one was totally ruined by the numerous attempts to frost. Had a chat with the guy at the local "glassmaker", he was going to charge me 250 NOK (About ... $40) to blast one side of a 13*40 cm piece of plexi. F*ck me! Thats like... about 7 tmes what I paid for the plexi. DAMNIT!
Glass wasn't abrasive enough on a SOFT PLASTIC? You're kidding...maybe the beads were too big or you weren't patient enough. I used a very fine play sand. It takes time, but is very even and soft.
The glassmaker told me some of the reason for the high charging, was that plexi is really hard to blast. Lexan, being softer, is even worse. If the beads are "too smooth", it will take ages to blast. Plexi has a much softer surface than metal and glass. This, although exaggerating - is like trowing a rock at a rubber plate. You can mar the surface - but it will definetly take some time. If using matals to blast, it could work faster - but you might get a discolored surface.
Well, blasting is out of the question, atleast for me. I cannot afford it. I'm having a go with 60 grid paper now, actually it looks like it might just work... Now I just have to take a break from the sanding, my fingers have lost alot of skin from the 60 grid. Damnit, wish I could afford an orbital sander.
http://www.case-graphics.co.uk hi if you want to try stick on Etch Vinyl give me a yell, as we use to make custom window Appliqués a bit 200mm * 300mm would be £5 including delivery parking sign custom made for any car model
Well, wet sanding to frost plexi has never worked, but you can use 100 to 120 grit to get a frost affect, don't use to heavy of pressure when using a sanding block, and you want the unfrosted side looking out towards you. I have a friends that does etching and frosting with plexi, and she uses 100 to 120 grit to frost it, with light pressured strokes. And you can try different techniques to get different frosted looks. Use some scratch plexi and experiment.
Easyist way that I have found is about 2 minutes with an orbital sander at about a 300-400 grit. Is not exactly the same as a perfect frost with a sandblaster, but it has worked really well for me so far.
i use a Profile Sander for most things that i would normally use a Random Orbital Sander for, mostly because i dont have an ROS...is there much of a difference? the end result always comes out the same, sometimes even looking better than examples ive seen done with an ROS, but...concensus?
