How to un-bend acrylic?

Some of the 3 mm and 1.5 mm acrylic pieces I have are very slightly bent. It’s not a big deal for acrylic, which is flexible. But I intend to make molds for casting from these pieces, and I don’t know how flexible the cast pieces will be. I suspect the bending occurred during shipping. This suggests they could be un-bent. Would two flat surfaces and some pressure be enough, or should I counter-bend them to get them to straighten out? I hope to hear from anyone who has experience with this issue. TIA

Hi, David.

I’m sorry to hear that some of your parts arrived bent. It is possible that the parts were bent during shipping simply due to the climate. If it’s a minor bend, you should be able to flatten the pieces by putting them on a table with a flat, heavy, object on top and letting them sit overnight (we do this often with bowed material that is shipped to us by our customers).

I hope this helps!

- Arthur

Thanks for the advice. When shipped, some of the pieces were wrapped up in a packet, and this packet was wrapped against a large flat piece of corrugated cardboard. But some of the pieces in the packet extended beyond the side of the packet that was against the cardboard. They did NOT extend beyond the cardboard. The pressure of the overall wrapping caused these outer pieces to bend a little. But the acrylic seems to have a “memory” of being flat, and has flattened out again on its own.

Hi, David.

Thank you for the additional information. We will reevaluate our packaging so we can be sure to avoid issues like this in the future.

- Arthur