Adam Savage's One Day Build: Acrylic Display Box!

a small caveat before you start watching this  video in this video i make a plexiglas box i   talk about visiting tap plastics 20 plus years ago  to figure out how they do it i talk about how to   use certain techniques to build with acrylic and  ways to get certain results and then i don't get   any of the good results during the build i get a  very mediocre box at the end of it i'm happy with   it but i also feel a little bit guilty because  you know i i put out a video saying here's how   to do something and i'm not really teaching you  how to do something in this video you're just   watching me build a mediocre acrylic box if you  want to build your own based on techniques you   see here please double check everything i say all  right i think that's all let's get into the intro   hey everybody ab savage here in my cave with my  appalling amazing beard yes uh i recently did a   one-day build where i showed how i sewed hearing  aid where i showed how i sewed this beard onto uh   a mesh i bought this mesh beard made of yak hair  from uh an etsy seller we'll include a link in the   comments below um and then i sewed it to a wire  a spring steel matrix that i built and i'm like   i'm totally obsessed with this beard  i love i love how transformative it is   i like how invisible it is and i know  it's not totally invisible but again   like for my purposes like walking through a con  you know it's a thing by the way also as i as i'm   like moving this i'm having all this like ptsd  about watching jamie like a justice mustache   you could watch him eat a burger and his like  the like small hairs at the top of his mustache   would like prehensily reach out and like scoop in  the sesame seeds kind of like a limpet or like a   barnacle in the same way that they like eat krill  jamie's mustache ate sesame seeds from its burgers   you're welcome for that image everybody  um so uh when i i spend my whole   life building things which means i spend the time  before building each thing deciding what to build   and in deciding what to build sometimes it's  really easy like oh i want to be an aliens   colonial marine well okay that's a set of builds  sometimes i like like uh i said this in the one   day build video i bought this beard as um costume  research for a costume i'm working on and i didn't   know that just receiving this beard and putting  it onto this would be so um compelling to me   but it is i'm compelled by the face i can  see in this beard when it's just hanging here   like there's something about witnessing  both this and it being on that i find   fascinating and in that vein this obsession  you oftentimes when i make an object that i   can't stop thinking about hang on often when  i make an object that i can't stop thinking   about one of the very next steps in my not being  able to stop thinking about it is to consider   a holder for the object that i love i've made many  vessels here in fact the very first one-day build   was a vessel for my blade runner gun so today  i'm gonna make a vessel for my beard that's why   title of this video is beard vessel which is a  really weird title i i agree but i'm gonna make   a vessel for this that shows it off basically i  thought to myself oh i love this i'd like to look   at it this way oh and that gave me an idea for  a vessel and that's the idea i'm going to build   it's weird i admit that up front it's going to be  a strange thing but um you know i thought of it   i want to see it i want to make it so i'm going  i'm gonna i'm gonna this john over here um yeah beard spirits beards let's get into it i just totally want to answer the door  every day like this how are you doing that uh okay um yeah let's get into  it uh a large portion of this is gonna   be made out of clear plexiglass and  i've already done some figuring here   so i've done some figuring this is the size of the  box it's going to be that on the face and the back   and the sides are going to be about this wide it's  going to be this tall i figured this out just by   literally like holding this up and holding it up  and like you know making measurements and making   so what it'll do is it'll hold the beard  nicely so that it can be transported but also   seen that's a that's a key part of this for me  is that i get to i can see it right all right   do i do this build wearing the beard hey why not adam savage does full one day build in cosplay  film at 11. this something that i haven't done   actually uh i tell a lie a couple  of halloweens ago we did some um a couple of halloweens ago actually now  probably three um i dressed up as captain   america all day we had a whole bunch of  tested people everyone dressed up that day   i think i built something i have pictures  of me building something as captain america   i think it was putting the finishing  touches on the speaker here   it doesn't really matter all right um so what  i've got is two sides that are going to be about this tall it's exactly eight by twelve  that's amazing and the width here   4.5 4.5 inches so i need two of these at eight  by 4.5 right right here we go ah 12 by 4.5 all right i've got a base here i've got a back so i'm going to do a plexi box  which i've done before in the cave but this time   i'm going to show you uh the this time i'm going  to show you the uh the way in which it uh you can   do it nicely i'm going to show you a slightly more  advanced technique than i have shown before to the   end of making this a nice plexi box i know because  the paper is covering these pieces of acrylic   that their faces are perfect but these sides have  some artifacts from my saw cut and i'd like to   remove those so what i've done is i've taped  a couple of sheets of 320 grit sandpaper down   to my uh granite surface plate um and i am  going to sand and flame polish the edges   of these pieces of acrylic and i hope to  show you just how easy this process can be   um it just takes a little diligence it's  not a complicated it's not it's not an   overly complex thing to make a nice plexi  box so i've got a nice cut on the top and so yeah here's how you do it oh good job  wow i really messed that one up right   away didn't i i've got two nice sheets of  320 grit i'm going to begin by taping them   together across their back i know you were  probably yelling me to do this a minute ago now tape it down to   your table and and this can just be a piece of  masonite it doesn't have to be a surface plate   just happens to be the flattest thing i've got  here in case okay so yeah it's basically this until you have a surface you like and i'm gonna   i'm gonna keep on cleaning this and it's  a bunch of work all right this is uh yeah all right welcome to the  apocalypse so here is this bad edge   that is an edge with can you see that  yeah i think you can this is a good edge and this is a bad edge so we're going to try  and make the bad edge a good edge this way and voila that is good enough  for us because we're gonna   flame polish it okay now i've got these oh  right i guess gotta get all four sides of this   uh actually i'm gonna do the uprights  of this because it's more critical good so this is an interesting one  uh i just wanted to say here   going to talk you through how to do a nice  finished plexiglas box but i might not   i'm going to talk to you through how the  techniques generally work as an overview   i am not going to slavishly try and get to a  perfect plex glass box because i just don't care   that's really true but when you're talking about  a plexiglas box you're talking about the kind of   construction you've seen in museums of  plastic boxes that are edge glued like this   with a weld bond and you can get  these glass clear joins in the acrylic and at the very most basic level  how does tap plastics do it   they make all their cuts with a  specific expensive blade that's   exclusively for acrylic it is an 80 tooth triple  chip zero kerf blade uh triple chip means that   one chip goes this way one chip goes that way  and one chip is in the middle uh so it uh makes   a nice uh flat bottomed cut if i'm remembering  correctly and secondly zero kerf means that the   carbide tips don't hang out over the edge  of the saw blade it's very straight cut   and then add tap after making that  cut they finish that edge on a jointer   uh which expensive piece of equipment that you're  generally not going to have in your shop so   uh the joiner is a finish that is good enough  to be flame polished and i'm going to show flame   polishing in this video but not just yet so  flame polish is the is the least expensive of   the polishing options of a plexi box the most  expensive is actual polish where someone has   sanded it down to like 600 and then polished it  with a polishing compound uh i'm not going to do   that today today what i'm going to do because  i don't have a jointer is i'm cutting it on my   uh my kind of semi new table saw blade  and then i'm going to finish using 320   grit and that'll get me a finish good enough to  flame polish you might be able to flame polish excuse me you might be able to flame polish  with less of a grit with 220 grit i'm just   i'm starting with 300 today it's it's a small  machine i'm in a small box that i'm making and   just going through here and trying to remove  the visible artifacts of the table saw cut   and also trying to remain relatively square i mean next time you're at a museum check out the  vitrines the boxes in which stuff is displayed   that is the high high quality work in fact if you  go to the cal academy and you see some of the fish   tanks there some of the techniques for gluing the  big fat heavy duty cast pieces of acrylic some of   those techniques and glues and formulations are  all trade secrets of those companies that's how   that's how specific it can get but i'm giving  you the basic tap plastics how do they make a box   triple chip 82 zero kerf finish on a joiner flame  polish that's the inexpensive tap plastics box   and i'm doing a kind of a modified version  of that because i don't have a joiner   or is it jointer i think it's joining much better sorry i forgot i'm doing this building character my next guest needs no introduction yeah  it's almost a crazy dave letterman beard   i'm having so much ptsd of like working  with jamie wearing this because i look   in the camera and i see myself do  this and that's like total jamie move i know i could laser cut this i'm not gonna so this all right i think i'm gonna yep sorry so this is four point 4.5 can i say just this wispy beard is it's warm  i mean i get why the crew of jaws were all wearing   heavy beards i understand why you wear a beard in  the cold but here in san francisco it's making me   sweaty all right uh eight by 4.625 oh no it's  not almost messed it up um the front of this   case will be a sliding door  so i'm going to notch uh here can you even see that i'm gonna notch right here   yeah there you can see it i'm gonna put a notch  there and there to accommodate the sliding door so i just want to test this okay so then this one comes over the is top bingo that's the bingo so now i'm about to glue this up and  to do that i'm going to pull this up pull the tape off because  i can reuse the sandpaper you want a really neat and clean  surface to do your construction on   i'm going to put some ground paper on i'm not going to tape all this the edges  down here just it's not that important   just creating a nice clean surface  i'm going to peel up the paper on this so um because i am gluing this to  this my glue edge of the acrylic here   is uncovered with paper so i'm not gonna peel  any of the paper off this piece no no i am not i am gonna peel the paper off the inside  of this piece if you're wondering if i   have like some excellent technique for peeling  the paper off old plexiglas i don't this is an   old plexiglass i think i picked these up in the  scrap bin at cat plastics just a few months ago but i don't need to do the backside of this because again it's not  getting covered um you know what just in order   for me to be able to see i may do the um let me  peel the outside of this i want to see the glue   joint you'll see what i mean when i do it actually  along this whole thing just in order so that i can   see that i have the right saturation i am going  to peel the paper off this isn't the best practice   but it's been a long time since i've done this  and i need to see what i'm doing so i'm going to   all right so i have the box set up and  the way it's set up is really important uh all six pieces are clean and their edges have been  sanded all five pieces um i'm about to use a weld   bond glue which is this stuff in the needle  applicator and when i put it on the acrylic   it's going to melt both sides of the acrylic  and hopefully when it dries it makes them one   so i'm sure you've seen the edges of some of  those giant tanks at the at the aquarium same way   they're done different formulations and different  kinds of acrylics but same basic idea this glue   it will mark any of the pieces of plastic that  it touches so i have a technique for keeping it   from going where i don't want it to go and one of  the techniques for keeping it from going where it   doesn't want to go is this right here you see the  toothpick there the toothpick is creating a little   bit of a rise so that the tape isn't touching the  seam that means when the glue wicks down this seam   here it won't find the tape and then wick under  the tape that is a bad situation that may happen   here but we're going to try and run it off at  the path so i'm going to run some glue in here   like this i'm going to run it across the tops i'm  going to let it sit for a while i'm going to run   it up here and watch it run down here and then i'm  going to let it sit for probably half an hour and   then turn it over and add some more glue to get it  all wetted out then i'm going to break out my um torch and i'm going to flame  polish it okay so a technique for keeping your so one of the things about  the acrylic glue is that it's thinner than   water and it's very much like an alcohol  base so it flashes quickly it flashes off   um which means if you hold it like this it can  sort of boil out of the out of the tip just   from your body heat so what you do is before you  apply it you squeeze the bottle now the bottle's   under some negative pressure because it wants to  revert and you see that boiling that's the bottle   pulling air into it and that's the that  is how you want the bottle to be the whole   time you're using it that way you're not going to  accidentally add any badness to this so here we go not a lot of saturation there but oh enough okay okay feels like i got enough penetration  in the corners to be able to uh it's not a perfect wet out  no it's not a perfect one   but i never said it would be i  never promised you a rose garden here we go good good good yeah  i think that's kind of pretty yeah i'm sure i know i know i'm sure the  tap plastics people are probably yelling   at me i don't mean to say that i am using a tap  plastics accepted technique this is just what one   technician showed me like 20 years ago and i've  used it ever since two pretty good results um   when i need really nice boxes made i hire someone  to make them that's this the cost benefit analysis   is such that it's cheaper to do that um but  this is sitting and it's gluing and i'll show   you some close-ups of what the seams look like  and hopefully they'll be like one good seam and   i can show you what a good seam looks like but  it's most likely i'm going to show you one two   three four five six seven eight medium seams  all right um while we're doing this i can now figure out how big that front piece is and i always like to do this practically  like with the actual piece whenever i   make this number theoretical like oh  it should be if i do the math on the   uh one thing is you can never count on the actual  thickness of acrylic whether it's extruded or cast   matters uh the variance can be plus or minus  50 thou i mean it's it can be significant   when you get into the thicker acrylics  um so i always make these measurements in situ and then all right i think this is together enough to turn  it over and do a second glue on the other side yeah all of these seams are just okay oh wow whoops no yeah this is what it comes from being impatient  uh it wasn't that bad i don't think i messed it up   oh oh thank goodness sometimes that can  really just like ruin your whole day moment of truth   i love it i'm very happy oh that is a lovely  feeling all right so i think my box is mostly   finished while it sets and yeah i'm going to let  it set oh i'll show you all the close-ups of my   bad glue seam actually maybe i can get a little  bit more glue in the side here okay so uh now   well obviously i need a  handle so i'm gonna cut that now the experienced plastic fabricator  will do most of this without peeling the   paper off of much of the glue and that has  the purpose of leaving the paper to protect   the surfaces while the box is being assembled  and only mission critical edges are revealed   it's a whole there's a whole process to it um  and like i said i'm not doing that process but   let's see here can i get yeah i think  i can get some more in there too all right i think that's as good as  i'm going to get here um so the handle yeah something like that look at that oh oh oh my gosh why it's the  one sixth scale atom figure box that's not what it was meant to be all right here's the handle i'm gonna cut out   i'm gonna rough it out on the bandsaw  and then finish it on the mill by the by if you ever have to um   machine with acrylic you want to use cast not  extruded it will it's the only way it is the way uh to walk you through that i drew my lines  and i cut these four sides this one this one   this one and this one by eye according to  the pencil marks close enough then i uh   i cut this piece and made its thickness match  this it's pretty consistent it'll sit like this   like yeah and then i'll just  glue it on it'll be really nice   and you'll get to see a machine edge which  is not that bad actually especially with cast   acrylic seriously you really want to go with cast  acrylic not extruded for machining operations like   this because it's way less melty it's more  pellety when you cut it and machine it and you see that that's not a bad piece yes  i could go and oh hey i can show you a   flame polish on this piece here  we go all right flame polishing   oh it's yak here i was thinking if  this is like you know some kind of fake   the whole thing goes up my head is like yeah  all right so here you go flame polishing is   get myself out of this corner here flame  polishing is a tricky business it takes some skill   takes a little practice not a ton just got to be  careful about it so what you want to do is you   want to go in and make sure you can see the light  of the reflection of how it's going to polish   and then come on in and just do it and just do it out well that is not nearly as exciting  as i was hoping it would be   um and i think it has to do with the  difference between the cast and the   yep i'm not showing you proper flame polishing  technique here because i don't think i'm using   the right acrylic that certainly made it a  little a little nicer to my eye but probably   not much to yours but that's what flame polishing  is you literally just don't stop you want to move   along you don't want to get it too melty we're  going to put this right here we're going to   measure it roughly center by eye oh yeah we're  going to measure it roughly center by eye that was literally i'm sorry but i feel like you should be  impressed with that because i am okay here we go hold it down here let it wake all the way through okay oh right right right  beard clips i need beard clips   i have to make a pair of beard clips and figure  out where they go i don't want you to see how   this looks just yet i need it do i even need  a beard clip in here i kind of feel like i do but hey bandsaw noises all right  here we go i'm just gonna clean up this piece okay i want to flame polish that edge okay okay i have one more tab to make and  it is a tab well you'll see you'll see i cut out this little shape on my  bandsaw with my belt sander i trust that   you can use your imagination to figure out how  that happened i don't mean to insult you that   sounded like i was being insulting i trust you  could use your imagination i'm just you know   sorry my apologies now i'm  just gonna smooth this out all right i'm going to give you a  close-up so you can watch the glue   wick in so hopefully you'll be able to  watch the glue wick in here i am going to um   put a little bit of pressure on top of it just uh and again squeezing out the air out of  the bottle a little pressure on top oh see that did that was that something that you were  able to actually see i'm not sure i can't tell this is i'm look i fully recognize the absurdity  of this how-to like i'm going to show you how to   do something but i'm not going to do it the way  i'm telling you how to do it i'm going to do it   to a much lesser standard but if you have greater  standards here's how you could do it here's how i   figured this out i was thinking how do i make good  plexiglass boxes and i thought i don't know i mean   i kind of know roughly how it happens but wait a  minute hey i'm ordering stuff from tap plastics   all the time because i was in san rafael working  for lucasfilm ordering from the tap plastics in   san rafael on a weekly basis so i called up the  manager that i dealt with and said hey could i   come in and spend two hours watching one of  your guys make a box and he said absolutely   this is the kind of thing you can do people  will show you their stuff yeah you can just   ask how do you do that and they'll explain  people like sharing their techniques so   uh that one worked out great for me as  you can see because i'm such an expert all right uh time for some labeling so hahahahaha this makes me very happy this is uh yeah so this this is here so i can lift  this up right isn't that nice yeah yeah   it says beard savage i've signed it uh i guess  maybe i could add yak hair made by blah blah and   maybe i'll make others of this i mean i like the  idea of a makeup department where it's like beard yeah i really dig this um i don't know why i don't know why i wanted to make  one of these i don't know why i had to see it but   i did and i have and i'm happy now it's friday  it's four o'clock i'm gonna go home thank you guys   so much for joining me for this one day  build i am sure that unlike young me in 1999   when there wasn't any instructional  videos for acrylic box construction online   and i had to go to tap plastics i'm sure that  there are now videos about this that are more   comprehensive than mine if i find one i'll  include a link to it in the comments below   but until then you'll just have to deal with my  middling expertise um thank you guys so much for   joining me for this one day build i had a lot  of fun all right i'm gonna go home disguise i just discovered the best part about  this is hey how does the spirit look at me   oh yeah not bad thank you guys so much for  watching that video if you'd like to further   support us here at tested one of the single  best ways you can do it is through a tested   membership now there's a link below as to  the various levels of tested membership   but at the top level i want to explain it's so  much more than videos that are exclusive there are   q and a's there are live streams there are some  exclusive videos but the thing i love most about   the tested membership is the interactivity the  constant and wonderful communication between the   tested members and not just me but our entire team  every day it feels more and more like a beautiful   community just devoted to the joys of making so  join up and become one of us one of us one of us

Channel: Adam Savage’s Tested

Views: 183,849

Keywords: tested, adam savage one day build, adam savage, one day builds, fake beard, adam savage costume build, adam savage tested costumes, adam savage cosplay costumes, fake beard cosplay, fake beard for men, fake beard weave, fake beard application, adam savage beard, tested one day builds, adam savage tested, adam savage box making, diy acrylic box, diy acrylic display box, diy display case, diy display box

Id: -imr0Cy7NQY

Length: 39min 42sec (2382 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 14 2021