Looking for 1mm thick colored acrylic for nixie calculator

[rea5245]

Hi. I'm restoring an old nixie tube calculator. The lens over the display is damaged so I'd like to replace it. It's 1mm thick transparent orange plastic.

I'm able to find plenty of sources for 3mm thick colored acrylic or 1mm thick untinted transparent acrylic, but no 1mm colored. Anyone know of a source? Or an alternative?

Thanks,
   Bob

[DaJMasta]

If you can tolerate thinner, look for professional stage lighting gels.  Some could be that thickness, but I think most are thinner, but they come in a wide variety of colors and are probably cheap used (since so much is going RGB LEDs and makes them obsolete).

[LapTop006]

TAP Plastics have 1/8" which might be close enough for you.

https://www.tapplastics.com/product/plastics/cut_to_size_plastic/acrylic_sheets_transparent_colors/519

Update: Took a few minutes for my metric brain to realise that 1/8" is ~= 3mm. Still, TAP might be worth contacting.

[rea5245]

If you can tolerate thinner, look for professional stage lighting gels.

That looks like the perfect solution. Thank you!

- Bob

[ajb]

Stage lighting gels are films, not rigid sheets. You may be able to laminate them to a rigid substrate, though.

Another option is dyeing a clear plastic sheet.  Rit (sold in many craft stores) has dyes specifically made for synthetic materials that should work on many types of rigid plastic sheeting.

[floobydust]

I get small coloured plexiglass off eBay, search for "red acrylic sheet".
Local plastics shops also have the stuff. On-line there are places that laser cut and engrave like Pololu in Nevada that I have used if you want to go fancy.

[rea5245]

I get small coloured plexiglass off eBay, search for "red acrylic sheet".
Local plastics shops also have the stuff. On-line there are places that laser cut and engrave like Pololu in Nevada that I have used if you want to go fancy.

Yeah, but it's not 1mm. It simply won't fit in the groove.

- Bob

[floobydust]

If it's an American product, the plastic thickness is in Imperial units i.e. 1/16" (1.58mm).
McMaster-Carr has everything available. Take a hunt there or maybe email them to see if they have such thin stock.

[rea5245]

Yes, it's American. It measures 0.75mm thick so it's probably 1/32". It's stiff but bendable.

- Bob

[CatalinaWOW]

Another option might be to thin the edges to fit the mounting slot.  Some display geometries will allow this.  Not too hard to do if you have access to a router table.

Re-polishing the original window might also be an option, depending on what the damage was.  The kits sold for restoring headlights work wonderfully for this.

[DaJMasta]

May be manageable with sandpaper too, so long as you can get a good grip on it for doing the long edge sanding.  Not quite ideal, but easy to get an approximate fit by beveling the interior edge a bit.

[Benta]

Check out RC model shops. They have plenty of this kind of material.

[rea5245]

Check out RC model shops. They have plenty of this kind of material.

What do they use it for? What should I ask for when I go in?

- Bob

[Towger]

RS used to stock this (in red). I am sure I still have a small bit from 30 years ago.

[macboy]

I bought these for a similar purpose... instrument lens replacements.
https://www.amazon.com/Neewer-Transparent-Filter-Sheets-Flashlight/dp/B01K9OA1IW

The listing says they are "gels" but they are not. These are not acrylic but probably PET or something similar. They are roughly 0.3 to 0.4 mm thick, but are quite stiff enough for a display lens. The individual sheets have a protective film on both sides to prevent scratches prior to use.  The pack includes a variety of colors (including orange) and each sheet is about 30x30 cm so plenty big enough to make many lenses per sheet.

I had also bought some actual lighting color gels but they were very thin and were definitely not optically clear enough to use as a display color filter (they blur the display too much).

[TheSteve]

Nice, I was also looking for something like this for a nixie project.

[tooki]

If you can tolerate thinner, look for professional stage lighting gels.

That looks like the perfect solution. Thank you!

Little trick from the photography world: buy the gel swatch books! (The little ones happen to be ideally sized for putting on small flash units.)

I get them from B&H Photo:
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/search?Ntt=rosco%20swatch%20book&N=0&InitialSearch=yes&sts=ma&Top+Nav-Search=