Shrink plastic where to buy
As for colors, the magic plastic can be easily found in the colors, frost or transparent matte, white, transparent glossy, black, pastel yellow, pastel yellow, pastel green, cream, pastel blue, pastel pink and several other colors, although they are more difficult to find.
If you need the pieces to have a hole or want to give them a specific shape with a hole punch, remember to do it before heating it to make it easier due to its thinner thickness, but keep in mind that the holes will shrink when heating the magic plastic.
Whether you color your piece with pencils or markers or if you print it, remember to apply a lighter color than you want the final result to be, as the shrinking will saturate the color and it will look much darker than before.
Plastic that shrinks with heat
For those of you who don’t know it, it is a very easy to use and customize material. It consists of a plastic sheet on which we can draw a picture. After cutting it out and thanks to its passage through the high temperatures of a kitchen oven, these drawings are transformed, as if by magic, into hard plastic pieces with a very, very, acceptable quality.
There are different types of magic plastic. They usually have a rough side on which we will paint or print. The “good side” of our pieces will finally be the opposite. So if you decide to write a word, you will have to do it in mirror mode. That way when we turn it over, it will look right side up.
The acetate shrinks
It is an everyday image that we have seen a thousand times: a bottle of water (empty, of course) that twists and melts at high temperatures. We often encounter a series of physical or chemical phenomena that, because they are commonplace, often go unnoticed. For example, have you ever stopped to think why some polymeric materials, such as the polyethylene in plastic bags or rubber, are flexible, while others, such as PVC or methacrylate, are rigid? (I use the term ‘polymeric materials’ and not ‘plastics’ because, although all plastics are polymers, other polymers are not plastic, as is the case with rubber or natural products such as cellulose or proteins).
The reason lies in a physical quantity called glass transition which, although not exclusive to these materials, is typical of them due to their peculiar internal structure. The glass transition is the change from a flexible to a rigid state, or vice versa. It is a phenomenon associated with amorphous or glassy solids, hence its name, and does not occur in crystalline materials. Let us see why.
Magic shrink plastic
Polystyrene has a number of exceptional characteristics: it is lightweight and water resistant, and can be an excellent thermal and electrical insulator. Its excellent dimensional stability, hardness and rigidity are some of the reasons why this material is usually chosen for food containers, since it allows to keep them fresh and looking good for a longer period of time and to reduce the use of preservatives. The wide variety of grades that exist make it a very versatile material, suitable for a wide range of applications. It is manufactured in different and attractive colors, transparent or opaque.