Custom White Acrylic Letters

Cutting custom white acrylic letters at CNCROi.com is no different than any other color or thickness, including any mix of alpha-numerics or symbols.

For this specific project, CNCROi.com is cutting custom white acrylic letters using quarter inch material, we can of course cut thicker or thinner acrylic (or other materials as well).

Keep in mind that custom white acrylic letters are made from a petroleum product, as such, there is a fire shooting down under the sheet throughout the processing of this material, as such, powerful extraction and compressed air is required to make sure the acrylic sheet doesn’t produce a chain reaction and catch on fire.

The custom white acrylic letters are all cut precisely, first to last, as such, each and every one is identical for ultimate repeatability.

With certain acrylics, CNCROi.com can also employ our fiber laser source, in addition to CO2, for some very creative options that don’t involve paints, dyes or printing of any sort, for ultimate durability.

There is some slight raising of the custom white acrylic letters during production, this is just some heat stress going through the letters, but this quickly goes back to normal once it cools back down.

The nice thing about laser cutting acrylic is that the edges are all flame polished as they are being cut out of the sheet, as such, no secondary process is required, as would be, if we used one of our CNC routers to do the same work.

Additionally, inner corners are all sharp using the laser, unlike routering it, which produces a slight round radius in the inner corners as a spinning round bit cannot produce a 90 degree inner corner like a laser can, with an infinitely smaller diameter cutting diameter.

What I enjoy about paint filling acrylic is just how great it looks and adheres to the plastic, it really allows for incredible creative options.

CNCROi.com has extensive experience engraving and cutting acrylic of various thicknesses and properties, using both our laser and our router.

There is masking on both sides of these custom white acrylic letters, that’s why you see a light green verses the pure white that you actually see if this was removed from the alphanumerics in this project.

The nice thing about the laser, is that we can also aggressively nest the custom white acrylic letters, so very little material is wasted, this is because the laser diameter is extremely thin, compared to a spinning router, which would also push and pull the sheet, which acts to additionally limit the nesting options.

If paint filling is more your desire, acrylic does this wonderfully, generally though, we use paint filling applications with mirrored acrylic, it’s a perfect match.

CNCROi.com has cut a lot of acrylic through the years, but it isn’t the only plastic we process at the shop, we also machine a lot of polycarbonate, delrin, HDPE and other materials based on our customer’s spec requirements.

When it comes to quarter inch acrylic, you have to keep in mind that production times are roughly double that of 1/8″ and as thus, going to half inch is roughly 2x longer to cut than quarter inch, so it follows a pretty simple curve in both costs of production and materials, which also tend to follow these general rules.

CNCROi.com uses acrylic for pottery stamps as well, it has the perfect hardness for such applications and the clay doesn’t stick to it like it would with wood or other porous materials.

Although not done for this specific custom white acrylic letters project, CNCROi.com could have just as easily engraved these letters, in addition to cutting them, think paint filling and adding additional textures to the items being processed.

Acrylic is one of those materials, due to it’s propensity to catch on fire, that you don’t want to leave the machine working on it without you being there watching it over, it’s better than most flammable materials we process at CNCROi.com but the possibility is always there.

Laser cutting custom white acrylic letters are done in an order to reduce possible heat build-up on the sheet, that’s why you see the laser jumping all around the sheet of material rather than just concentrate in one area for any given time.

The nice thing about acrylic is that it’s relatively durable for many applications, it isn’t as strong as polycarbonate (bullet proof glass) but it’s close enough where the versatility of different colors allows for a lot more creative options.

The bright light you see is caused by the burning through and flame under the acrylic, when CNCROi.com cuts transparent acrylic, that’s when you really can see a lot more fire, the solid white color of this quarter inch material tends to mask what’s really going on under the sheet.

Unlike our CNC router, laser cutting acrylic doesn’t require any hold down methods, the sheet is simply placed on the bed of the laser and things are cut away, this produces a better result because there aren’t any additional forces of pushing and pulling through the letters are they are being cut.

Now that this sheet of custom white acrylic letters is cut, you can really see how great the material utilization was on this project, every possible space was used-up.

The burning grid you see in the above photo is just the results of laser cutting this sheet on a previous job where the sheet was flipped, it isn’t a concern as all of this soot is on the masking, not the custom white acrylic letters themselves.

Acrylic also makes for great jig material, it’s a very versatile material with a ton of uses for CNCROi.com customers.

When it comes to your options with acrylic cutting, they are endless, any mixture of fonts, symbols or imagery work perfectly great with this material and yes, if you wanted a sign using 1″ thick acrylic, CNCROi.com can cut that for you just as well, though we’d use our router for such a job.

You’ll notice all the “like” letters and vowels are all identical, this is the power of CNC equipment in general, each and every item we produce will be exact to specs, regardless of the material its made from.

Need custom acrylic stuff cut out? Contact CNCROi.com and we’ll make and ship it right to your door!