Cutting Acrylic and Plexi

[Tomlin]

Just a quick little bit of advise more than a proper tutorial.

I must give credit to another gentleman off of a website that was dedicated to working with scroll saws.

When cutting acrylic/Plexi, your cuts will be much smoother and you will experience much less fusing (reconnection) if you cover the area to be cut with masking tape.

[Yoshi]

Drilling holes into acrylic glass:

Always use a drillstand. It is also very important to use the right drill bit, IIRC the ones to drill brass are ok for acrylic glass, too.
Adding oil while drilling gives you very nice and clean holes (works for cutting/sawing, too).

Cheers

Yoshi

[Michael Carter]

I have found it much easier and less messy to just score it and snap the piece off.

[Tomlin]

I have found it much easier and less messy to just score it and snap the piece off.

This doesnt work too well when cutting complex curves such as throttle levers that are thick material, or .75" bar for the Korry replicas, but Im sure for thin parts it might work quite well.

[Dutchboy]

I find when cutting plexi on my CNC that a 50/50 mix of dish soap (not the powder) and water works fantastic. Just a thin film on the plexi before you cut curves is all you need. Keep in mind, I cut with a 1/8" endmill and only .0625" depth at a time for thick material.

[Michael Carter]

No, it only works for sheet with straight edges for making panels and such.

I'd just as soon not fool with it at all when I don't have to, but I had to make many a panel for my overhead before getting the real deal.

I'm still using several until the real one pops up somewhere.

[ivar hestnes]

I must recommend LEXAN-glass. Just as good as plexi, but it does not crack when drilled. Much more flexible. You can treat it just like a piece of wood

[Westozy]

My July article in Computer Pilot had a tute on machining plexi, you guys have got it right anyway. A 'backed-off' (Brass drill) with cutting oil is the industry's method, I build chemical screens and plexi tanks at work occasionally for the flouride dosing systems at our drinking water dams. I make sure the waste off-cuts are always big enough to find there way to my place! If you are using a jigsaw, put gaffa tape on the jigsaw's shoe and there will be less scratching of the surface and use a spray lube like CRC to cool the blade.

Gwyn

[Gsey]

Tap Plastics has a good tutorial video on the different methods to cut plastic.

Video can be found on this page http://www.tapplastics.com/info/video.php

They have many other good tutorials on that page as well.

Gary

[Michael Carter]

Very interesting. I watched several of their videos.