My Lucite experience

[grafixmonkey]

Just cut my Lucite Tuf, thought I'd post some pics of how it turned out.

Used both a circle cutter and a couple hole saws.  Here's a pic of how I kept them cool enough to continue cutting without having to take breaks.

It's a cheap (4 for $6) can of compressed air that if you hold it upside down sprays out the liquid air itself, which is extremely cold and freezes things very quickly.  About half a second with that and the metal bits were back to room temperature.

Look at the cutting bit of the circle cutter that I sprayed, you can see frost on it (sprayed it for 3 or 4 seconds for effect.   )

[rampy]

how much is a circle cutter? And can it cut wood, as well as plexi/lexan?

Thanks for posting pics, btw! visuals always help!

Rampy

PS I also notice you've got a corded drill... smart! one prob those of use with cheapo cordlesses is that the torque required to drill through mdf holes several times wears out batteries pretty quick (i.e. not necessarily the hot bit slowing us down).

[grafixmonkey]

Here are some shots of what it was like to work with the Lucite.  From top to bottom:  

Me using the circle cutter.  It's tricky and wobbley and requires a very steady hand, but works very well!

The hole made by the circle cutter in my panel.  Very nice, very clean.

Button holes made with the holesaw.  This was actually slower than using the circle cutter, but was necessary to get the exact hole dimensions and to be able to drill through the wood panel and lucite.  I had to frequently stop and remove chunks of lucite from the teeth and inside chamber of the holesaw.

A holesaw bonus...  the chunks of Lucite that come out after you cut are cool!  I bet there's a place I can put these to get a cool decorative touch with LEDs behind them.

A nice pic of the circle cutter and the package it came in.  The arm adjusts out to the side for hole radius, and the cutting piece adjusts vertically in its slot to change how much drill bit goes into the material before the knife on the arm begins cutting its little circle.

[rampy]

what are you up to with that recessed design engraved in it?!

c'mon what's your control panel gonna be like?

Rampy

[grafixmonkey]

how much is a circle cutter? And can it cut wood, as well as plexi/lexan?

Thanks for posting pics, btw! visuals always help!

Rampy

PS I also notice you've got a corded drill... smart! one prob those of use with cheapo cordlesses is that the torque required to drill through mdf holes several times wears out batteries pretty quick (i.e. not necessarily the hot bit slowing us down).

That drill is a wonderful antique my parents have had since as far back as I can remember.  It's got monster torque, a great handle where if you place your palm on it your forearm is in a direct line with the end of the drillbit, and steel construction to where you could run over it in your car and not damage it.

The circle cutter is theirs too, and it looked pretty old judging from the package, but I have no idea.  I looked in hardware stores but didn't find one right off - found the one my parents had before I found one in the stores.  So your guess is as good as mine what it cost.  

The tools I used to accomplish that panel were:

* The awesome antique drill
* Router for shaving the button holes a little thinner, and countersinking the joysticks
* Cordless drill, kept with a phillips bit on it so I could...  screw... things...
* Cordless Dremel, kept with a flat router bit on it for countersinking screw heads
* Table saw, for cutting funky angles so I could fit together my nifty octagonal-shaped box
* Circular saw, for slicing up the humongous pieces of particle board I bought.  Couldn't fit 'em on the table saw.
* Compressed air can, for keeping things cool and working faster!
* razor blade, for scoring and cracking the Lucite
* misc. clamps, screwdrivers, and metal stands for holding the wood up so I could saw it.

[grafixmonkey]

what are you up to with that recessed design engraved in it?!

c'mon what's your control panel gonna be like?

Rampy

I was discovering how much fun it is to use a router, while at the same time having just had a bunch of caffeine.  

Oh yeah, and the circle cutter will cut through wood.  But not quite as happily.  It doesn't seem to be quite what it's designed for...   it's sorta like whittling away at a stick with a knife.  The particle board whittled away quite happily, but I doubt you'd get anywhere at all with hardwood or 2x4s.

[grafixmonkey]

Here's a pic of the panel top.  It's not a "real" arcade machine...  it's designed to stand up in my living room in front of the TV, so I can use the same computer and TV for Mame and DVD playing and normal TV, and hook the thing up to my stereo for simple sound.  

Eventually I'll add an arcade monitor to it, but right now this is what works...  mostly due to lack of lots of space, and lack of lots of computers where I could spare one for an exclusive Mame box.

Here you see my panel clamped down for the Lucite work, with the Lucite bolted on to the panel and that clamped on top of a piece of scrap wood.

[grafixmonkey]

Just to be fun and see how bad you can be to Lexan / Lucite-Tuf before it starts to not like you any more, I tried to hammer nails into it.  Result:  Yes, it can be done!  My nails were the thinner, less sturdy variety used for taking a thin piece of something to a thick piece of something else.  Some of the holes I pre-drilled just a tad smaller than the width of the nail, and those went in the cleanest.  Another hole, I tried to just hammer the nail straight through, and the Lexan didn't like that very much, but the nail did eventually go through (15 bent/broken nails later) leaving a small discolored white region about a millimeter radius around the nail head, and a tiny almost invisible crack.  In both cases, the hammer missing the head of the nail and hitting the lexan surface left no random marks, scratches, or discoloration.  However, those nails could not be pulled back out without killing the lexan.

I then tried putting some of it through the table saw.  It almost seemed to like it, it went through so easy.  The cut was perfect, clean with no discoloration like the nail left.  At this point the lexan was attached to some wood which was going through at the same time, so that may have helped a bit, but I'm positive that if the blade of the saw was in the right position the lexan could be put through by itself.  This is great, because this means you can attach your Lexan to the surface of the piece of wood that is going to be your control panel, and use a table or circular saw to cut both into shape at the same time, no need for time-consuming scoring and cracking or messy freehand routing off of lexan edges.

About mess...   the Lucite-Tuf almost left less mess than the wood did.  It came off in little curly slivers which did not irritate my arms or become unpleasant at all.  They didn't blow all over the place or get into clothing / carpet like the sawdust did, and were easy to vacuum up after everything was done.

If anyone is still considering plexiglass instead of lexan or lucite-Tuf, I guarantee you'll save enough time and hassle with lexan that the cost difference is worth it.


Next, I'll try a spade bit and see what happens, then try some scratch-testing with nails and sides of power tools.

[TalkingOctopus]

I was not that impressed with lucite tough.  It is what I am using, however, I  think it scratches and scuffs fairly easily.  But it is holding up just fine in my cab...so I really shouldn't complain