Now onto the big news, I've given up on heat bending and moving on with laminating. This dramatic change comes as a result of too many failed attempts with acrylic; mainly that the corners warp giving an uneven profile which would be too much of a hassle to fix, in other aspects it's really hit or miss. In hindsight I should've made the jig that much longer so that I could heat bend the piece and then cut off the warped corners, but I don't have time to do that now.
With laminating I have that much more time to adjust the jig and clamps before the glue sets, one major problem I had with the acrylic. I tried my first full length piece yesterday and when I got it out this morning there was a nasty lip in it where it hadn't been flattened throughout:
To fix this problem, and one that I should've done from the start is make the jig double sided, so that both curves can be done at the same time. This is what I achieved today, making the former jig for the other half, along with milling out the side components to make them lighter:
The issue I had with laminating earlier is how to attach it to the acrylic tubing. This issue has been resolved with my idea of laser cutting outline splines which run down the curve, it's hard to describe it words but tomorrow I'll have the drawing done. These splines will be attached the plywood via copper rods which run down its length.
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