Fun with Acrylic

A friend of mine recently sent me a photo of a do-it-yourself 3D printer he'd like to make. I actually thought the clear material was plastic, but he informed he that it was actually acrylic! All things aside the design is pretty impressive.

*Image taken from RepRap.org

I was a little bit disappointed to hear this, as I was already fantasizing about using neon coloured plastic to make the printer. If it can make the kinetic gumball machines at Zellers look fun, it can do the same for a 3D printer. While these aren't the ones from Hillcrest mall that I remember (I don't think), I picked out a couple that were fairly close in design.

*Image taken from vendingdirect.com

I actually don't chew gum all that much, but the machines themselves have incredible potential as marble runs (and if you own one you can always open up the bottom for spare change). Someday I'll have to dedicate an entire post to that topic, there are numerous designs and concepts circulating the web that I could spend hours discussing.

Anyway, when I looked up Neon Acrylic, I got a few results like this. These were some acrylic furniture designs by Alexandra Von Furstenburg.

*Images taken from duchessfare.com

Not only is it exactly the material that would be needed (actually the printer building guide recommends a sturdy material, so you could actually use whatever you want as long as it holds up to your liking. I'm just going by the photo) it even comes in at least five fun neon flavours!

Of course the coffee table designs don't look half bad either!

*This one also comes in other colours

*Images taken from alexandravonfurstenberg.com

This one was by a different designer, but at this point I was starting to see the term 'Lucite' pop up in my chain of google search results.

*Image taken from smallshopstudio.com

And finally, after gawking at all of the different uses for acrylic such as decorative accents, novelties and jewelry, here's where the chain of Google search results took me...

*Image taken from guitarmuseum.com

Also available in Red and Blue apparently, when 'B.C. Rich Acrylic Mockingbird' came up on an online guitar store, I searched that and got this. It actually bears a slight resemblance to a guitar seen in a movie series that aired on Family channel a good few years back. Word of caution: if you decide to watch the movies to try and spot the guitar, Zenon's catchphrase may just drive you crazy!

Regardless, this guitar just bumped it's way to the top of my wishlist. Top that with the neon guitar strings I found at Cosmo Music the other day. Actually when I first spotted them I pictured getting something like this. Nonetheless they're both impossibly gorgeous!