A 1/2 inch thick acrylic shield made for protection during explosive demonstrations. Most commonly used for the Ice bomb demonstration.

   See Ice Bomb in the cataloger for information

Description: A 1/2 inch thick acrylic shield made for protection during explosive demonstrations. Most commonly used for the Ice bomb demonstration.

THE BLAST SHIELD (IN MY OPINION) WAS POORLY MADE AND IS OFTEN IN NEED OF REPAIRS

Repair Instructions Background: If you do not have experience working with acrylic, here is a little background information you should know (if you are familiar with acrylic skip to the repair procedure).

There are two typical ways of joining acrylic together: 1. Adhesive (Superglue,epoxy …. etc) 2. Chemical Welding

Superglue makes an incredibly strong bond, but I recommend that you only use this for small jobs. The blast shield is too large for this. The best, and strongest joints are made from chemical welds. There are many products you can buy for this purpose; however, the cheapest and most accessible option for a chemical weld is Acetone (which you can find in the demo room).

Acetone (most commonly known as nail polish remover), melts plastics on contact. This melting causes heat that evaporates the acetone away. As the acrylic solidifies again, it will fuse the surfaces together (much like a metal weld)

Repair Procedure: 1. Clean the two surfaces (I find it best to use the blade of an xacto-knife) 2. Put the blast shield on its side and add weights to hold the two surfaces together. Made sure the surface being joined is on the bottom so the acetone doesn't run all over. (See image below) 3. Pour Acetone into a glass beaker (Acetone does not react with glass) 4. Use a syringe and suck up some of the acetone. (Use a glass syringe if you can, but I only found a plastic one) 5. Make sure to rinse out the acetone from the syringe quickly afterwards so as not to melt the syringe if you used a plastic one 6. Using the syringe, inject acetone in between the two surfaces that you wish to join (you should see the liquid spreading around) 7. Wait for it to cure for MINIMUM 24hrs, several days is much better.