Just a quick note to wish everyone the happiest of holidays. Although it is beginning to get very busy for those of us that work within the tanning industry (January through May is our busy season) I will always answer your emails within a day or two, and try to keep the website updated every week or so. As long as you leave me an email address when you write, I still answer each and every email personally.

Remember: This site is nothing without the questions, ideas and input from visitors just like yourself. Thanks for all the kind words and support over the last year, as well as the great ideas and questions that have helped make TanningBeds.org a fun and useful place for everyone who loves to tan indoors. I wish you all a great 2007!

Dennis Brown

Got an email today, but the writer (Scott) didn’t leave a phone number or email address for me to reply, so I will post it here. The question was: “What are acrylics made of? Is Lexan a suitable material for replacement?”

Acrylics are made out of acrylic.

That is how they get their name. Any replacement must also be made of 100% acrylic. Other plastics BLOCK UV, so you would be wasting your time using another material. Also, many acrylics are formed, which is not something you can do at home, so buying replacement acrylic material to use in a tanning bed is pretty tricky. Usually, it is also more expensive.

Another problem is cutting it. If you try with a jigsaw, sabre saw, circular saw, or similar, you WILL destroy it within a second or two. You need to use something closer to an angle grinder with a cut blade instead (which is a bit dangerous) using very high speed and preferably a fence to guide the cut. I have done it before, and have a scar on my right middle finger to prove it.

Another issue is that there is a big difference in EXTRUDED and CAST acrylic, with advantages and disadvantages of both. Most you will buy is extruded, which is more flexible, costs less, but much more brittle and likely to crack. Most inexpensive beds, and beds made in Europe, use extruded.

So try it if you are up to the task, but only use 100% clear acrylic (regardless of the name brand) but be prepared for some hard work and very possible failure. If you are not a machinist or work with precision tools regularly, I wouldn’t try it.

Ok, surfboards are NOT the main reason that tanning beds were invented, but a call the other day got me thinking. I have helped over a dozen people design “tanning systems” for curing finishes on wood or the wood itself, but this was the first time I had a call about surfboards. I visit the ocean once or twice a year, but I have never even set a foot in salt water, so the idea had never dawned on me.

It appears that the newest finishes for surfboards are UV cured, so the recommended way to cure the finish is to “put the surf board out in the sun for a few hours on each side”. Simple enough, except the young lady that called happens to live in a place where the sun doesn’t shine every day during the winter (New England) so either they don’t finish surfboards half the year or find a way to produce UV along a 6 to 10 foot area during December. As usual, when someone calls with an “unusual request”, it is immediately routed to me.

Turns out she has an OLD tanning canopy in the attic. Since the lamp sizes haven’t changed, all she has to do is slip in some new F71 100W tanning lamps and they are ready to go. $100 for 10 lamps, $30 for shipping and they are done. She said he will likely chop off the base and attach it to the ceiling, making the unit take up zero floor space and make it easier to adjust the amount of UV it gets, as well as the angle of exposure.

I also pointed out that since a tanning bed (canopy, etc.) puts out a consistant amount of UV each time, and the sun certainly does NOT due to clouds, they can actually get a better finish by controlling the intensity and time for curing. It is about control, and nothing controls UV output like an old tanning unit with a timer. This is particularly important for wood and other finishes that darken with UV exposure.

So for all of you that are wanting to build a UV device for finishing guitars, violins, or even surfboards, you might want to start by looking in your local newspaper (or even your attic…) for an old canopy or tanning bed first. It IS much cheaper than custom building your own UV system. If you are using the UV from tanning units for other purposes, please forward it on to me, I would love to hear it.