# New Trestle Going In..., Totally Unique!



## toddalin (Jan 4, 2008)

My trestle is now over 15 years young (this is the second), and this year it gets replaced.


I've gotten older/lazier and rather than buy, load, cut, glue, and nail wood for over a dozen and a half bents, probably cutting myself several time in the process, it is now far easier to let the computer do the work.


I've been wanting to just cut the bents out of 3/8" acrylic sheet on the laser cutter, but 3/8" acrylic is costly (i.e., $70 a sheet for a 2' x 3' piece in minimum lots of 5 sheets). The only way that I could do this, and justify it economically, would be to let the laser cut the sheets into individual sticks, and deal with these as I would sticks of wood. The advantage is that the laser would cut all the bents to the proper lengths with the right angles at the tops and bottoms and the holes for easy assembly. A step in the right direction, but still a lot of work.


Then last week I saw that Airwolf 3D, maker of 3D printers, was selling off sheets of 3/8" smoked acrylic sheets in 3' x 2'..., at just $20/sheet! They were using this to make one of their discontinued models. They even agreed to throw in an extra sheet if I bought 10! So, at $770's worth of acrylic for just $200 (~$18.25/sheet), I can afford to let the laser do the work and chuck the excess material rather than deal with so many individual sticks. I can get 3 and maybe 4 bents per sheet, so, as little as $5 a bent!


And, rather than glueing these things together, I've devised a method that attaches the crossbraces using 2MM x 35MM stainless screws and nuts and the shape will secure the horizontal runners. Will probably be the only smoked acrylic trestle in existance!


This shows my test pattern as well as a set of the four crossbraces. BTW, it will take about an hour and a half per bent in laser time.


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## on30gn15 (May 23, 2009)

That definitely is a unique way to fabricate trestle bents.


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## toddalin (Jan 4, 2008)

I cut the first acrylic bent and two more sets of the cross pieces today. Each bent takes about 32 minutes to cut. This is much quicker than I anticipated. A set of four crossbraces takes about 9 minutes and there are two sets per bent. These will be held together with M2x35mm SS screws and nuts. This is smoked in color.


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