Cutting Perspex

Aug 06, 2005 12 Replies

I have some 6mm thick sheets of Perspex (ex-office partitions so no paper covering and almost too large to handle easily) with which I'm going to raise the effective height of a shower cabinet. The maximum length of cut will be about 1000mm.



How do I cut it?



TIA



Richard


Jigsaw with a fine blade, cut slowly, else the plastic will melt and flow round the blade and you won't actually get a cut.

It can be scored and snapped like glass.

Or cut with a saw. A jigsaw and suitable blade will be fine - but don't force it so that it melts.

And for a neat edge if you're a dab hand with a blowtorch you can 'flame polish' it.

Very satisfying.

Practice on scrap bits first!!!

It smells pretty vile when it burns, too...

A _good_ jigsaw. This is one of those jobs where you discover that teh £100 Bosch with little vibration and a controllable pendulum action is far better at it than Drivel's £10 Happy Shopper.

Fine toothed circular saw, this is how they're cut when made.

Yup. And it's easy to find blades for every task for the Bosch SDS system.

I've got sets that I don't know what they're all used for. ;-)

Use a 60 point fine circular saw blade ,have purchased from this company and can highly recommend there quality and service

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That would be a fine wood blade, not fine metal as the latter will clog rapidly. And the blade ABSOLUTELY MUST be razor-sharp, i.e. brand new.

Hmm. The circular saw I saw in a Perspex workshop ran at a very much slower speed than a wood one. I'd guess at around 1000 rpm with an approx

8" blade. So unless you can slow down a wood circular saw, I don't think I'd risk it. When using my jigsaw, I use a very low speed, with a suitable blade.

Normally perspex can only be scribe cut up to a maximum of 4mm thick anything above this thickness would be extremely hard.

A circular saw with a negative rake blade works really well fo straight cuts and or a jigsaw with metal cutting blade for the curves I have a laminate cutting circular saw balde that works great o perspex.

I often look here for advice

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guy that runs the site works for one of the worlds largest acryli manufacturers and he is always helpful

-- weekendwarrior

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