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| RandyT:
An old trick for cutting acrylic (and I imagine lexan as well) is to get a blade with the highest tooth-count you can afford and put it in the tablesaw backwards. Go nice and easy with it, but be careful as the material may have a tendancy to lift. Disclaimer: Try this one at your own risk. Not responsible for missing fingers or eyeballs :o RandyT |
| Joystick Jerk:
You may also want to consider taking the lexan to a hardware store that cuts tile with a professional water cooled system. Those machines obviously are great for cutting tile, which can break much easier than lexan will, and the water jet will help prevent any melting during the cutting. |
| Dire Radiant:
cutting plexi by scoring and snapping is easy and produces perfect results but it takes PATIENCE. First make sure your straight edge is actually straight (sounds like a no-brainer but you see bent straight edges all the time) Clamp the straight edge to the plexi so it doesn't move. Then use the BACK of an exacto knife of utility knife to lightly score along the straight edge. If you use the sharp side your cut will tend to wander away from the line you want it on. Keep doing this until you have a reasonably deep groove in the plexi, then you can turn your knife over and use the sharp side without it going haywire. Cut lightly until you're about halfway through. then unclamp the straightedge. Put the piece of plexi over the edge of a table with the groove facing upwards and bend it down using steady pressure in the middle if the piece is more than a couple of feet wide, use something to press it down over the edge so the pressure is evenly distributed. I use my straight edge. If you do that you'll end up with a nice clean break every time. |
| Veinman:
Thanks for the tips, I'm going to be getting a 24" x 48" x 1/8" sheet of lexan for my CP top, and I know I'm going to have to make some cuts. (And obviously drill some holes, but from what I have read that will be no problem). Plus the left-over will become a marquee. :) ...provided I don't screw it up. :-X |
| tommy:
This was funny reading all the ideas you guys had to cut/drill plexi/lexan. First of all you dont cut plexi with a knife, there is a special cutter like knife that is made just for cutting plastic glass, its probably not worth buying for most people because you will only use it one or two times. You can also use a jig saw, but your edges will need sanding as the saw frays it bad. You can just snap the plexi in two but first you must make sure you have gone through atleast half way through the plexi/lexan first, just keep scoring the line and break it off the edge of a table so it breaks in one motion. As for drilling i use antifreeze to keep the plastic from melting/cracking, and go slowly. |
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