The plastic is all hollow. I realized the front end of the bed – where the headlights are – would be an ideal storage compartment had they only installed a door there. Since they didn’t do it, I’d like to try, but I have ZERO experience cutting into plastic, adding hinges, etc.
Is this a doable project? Cutting a nice door and adding hinges to allow it to easily open/close, creating a simple storage area at the foot of the bed?
On the one hand, I have no experience doing this sort of thing. However, the first bed that was shipped had a damaged front end and they sent a replacement part, so I do have one front end that I can experiment on. If it gets damaged, no problem. But if I can get it to work there, then I can do it “for real” on the actual bed piece.
Any ideas? What tools are best for cutting plastic and not ending up with jagged, kid-cutting edges?
My guess is it will be really difficult to do, not look as good as you hope, achieve little in the way of practicality and, most important of all, cause your son to seethe with unspoken resentment about what you did to HIS bed.
Honest, forget it. Or ask your son what he thinks, pay attention when he answers and then forget it.
You’ll have to add something structural inside to make up for the part you’re cutting away. My gut feel is that you’d want to somehow beef up the plastic on either side of the cut lines. Especially at the inside corner cut, so it doesn’t develop a tear from there.
Not sure what you’d want to use to do the cutting.
I’d probably use a jig saw with a thick blade to cut it using a guide to make it nice and straight. you’ll likely need to reinforce the piece that would make the door and sorta frame around the opening. As it is curved it could be a bit tricky. Maybe strip down some pine into thin pieces to make a laminate. Three or four layers of 3/16th strips will probably do it.
Hinges on the outside would be easiest but if you wanted conceal everything you could with so creative planing. I’d probably allow outside hinges the heads of carriage bolts holding the structure on to the plastic.
A Dremel with a cut-off wheel attachment will work beautifully. Protect your eyes, hands, arms from flying molten plastic which really sucks. It’s really simple and easy to cut a straight line. Don’t twist the cut-off wheel though, it is brittle and snaps easily. Keep it in a straight line. Works like a charm.
If the plastic is really thick it might bog the Dremel down, so make repeated passes, slowly increasing depth. Jig saw might work, but the double wall plastic may not have enough space between the walls to allow for blade travel without bottoming out.
I’ve burned myself with pretty much any molten flying material you can think of, but molten plastic is the worst. Protect yourself.
Take the scrap piece and hold a lit match under a corner. If it immediately turns into goo, forget it - even if you had the best eye-hand co-ord. it the world, that is WAY too soft to mess with.
Unless you can convince them to send you a replacement for the rear…
Since you have no experience, let me tell you how it’s going to look if you actually had a bunch of experience, good tools, and lots of time: like crap.
Here’s my experience with trying to cut plexiglass:
It’s as brittle as glass. Trying to drill a hole in it will shatter it, or create spider cracks around the hole. If you try to cut it with a jig saw the heat of the blade/ cutting will have the plastic melt in the area just trailing the blade and as it cools it fuses itself back together. It’s a little strange; you’re cutting it and as fast as you cut it it “repairs” itself. (although with a “scar.”)
I’m not sure your son will hate you, but I doubt this will work, and you’re much more likely to ruin it.
plexiglass needs to be cut slowly. a sharp bit at lower speed and lower pressure drilling will drill fine. similar with sawing, a slow speed is needed to cut and throw the chips, high speed creates friction which melts the chips cut and the cut faces behind.
It’s not plexiglass (I don’t think). It’s very soft plastic.
Not worried about ruining the piece as I have a spare front end that was shipped dented and has since been replaced, so I can practice on that worry free.
But sounds like more than I want to bite off, regardless. Thanks everyone for the advice and fair warning.