Blade for cutting plexiglass
- Thread starter Jakez
- Start date
The fine toothed one for cutting wood etc. Reduce the speed to avoid melting the plastic. Use tape or sacrificial material to help with the cut & the latter to help pushing it thru the blade (sandwiching the plastic will really help, b/c plastic tends to 'jump around'.
No need to use a 'special' blade.
Test before doing final cuts.
No need to use a 'special' blade.
Test before doing final cuts.
AlexThePalex
Member
- Joined
- Nov 12, 2008
- Messages
- 7,808
I always use the special laminate blade, works much better than any of the wood blades. Cut is better, less melting and less tear out of the edges.
And keep a faster than normal feed rate to minimize melting.
Also a very small amount of material can be removed with a router to yield a smoother finish, but flame polishing is best for a very smooth edge.
You play a propane flame over the edge of the material allowing just enough heat to melt the sharp edges and roughness.
The sharp edges have less mass and they melt much sooner than the sheet itself, so the sheet does not melt and the surface of the cut does. It becomes perfectly smooth. Practice on a scrap piece first.
This video shows the process, first with the router to make a smoothing pass and then with the flame polishing. He is using the aluminum base and the aluminum angle profile as heat sinks to prevent excess melting.
less than two minutes and if you want a fussy job to look good this is worth watching.
When I has my picture framing business I has a vendor who made custom fabricated plexi covers for display. They mitered the joints and finished it so precisely that when they used the solvent for gluing pieces together you could not see a seam. It was perfect. I assumed that they used a milling machine and a very slow speed cutter, but I never found out how exactly they did this.
If your router has a speed adjustment, then slow it down as much as possible.
Without the heat-sink you end up with a nice radius on the edges if you flame polish.
Also a very small amount of material can be removed with a router to yield a smoother finish, but flame polishing is best for a very smooth edge.
You play a propane flame over the edge of the material allowing just enough heat to melt the sharp edges and roughness.
The sharp edges have less mass and they melt much sooner than the sheet itself, so the sheet does not melt and the surface of the cut does. It becomes perfectly smooth. Practice on a scrap piece first.
This video shows the process, first with the router to make a smoothing pass and then with the flame polishing. He is using the aluminum base and the aluminum angle profile as heat sinks to prevent excess melting.
less than two minutes and if you want a fussy job to look good this is worth watching.
When I has my picture framing business I has a vendor who made custom fabricated plexi covers for display. They mitered the joints and finished it so precisely that when they used the solvent for gluing pieces together you could not see a seam. It was perfect. I assumed that they used a milling machine and a very slow speed cutter, but I never found out how exactly they did this.
If your router has a speed adjustment, then slow it down as much as possible.
Without the heat-sink you end up with a nice radius on the edges if you flame polish.