cutting delrin (acetal) with a table saw

[thomas struth]

Anyone here ever cut Delrin (aka acetal) with a table saw? It's a hard, machinable plastic. I need to rip a few pieces. Any reason I shouldn't use my WWII?

[Rick Lizek]

It cuts easily with a carbide blade and it won't hurt it. Cuts with a bandsaw, RAS, miter saw, lathe, etc.

[Dave Anderson NH]

Haing been in the plastics distribution and fabrication industry for a few years the short answer is yes. Delrin, Celcon, and other acetal plasitcs cut similar to wood. Any carbide blade with cut acetals, nylons, polyethylenes, polypropylenes, polycarbonates (Lexan), and acrylics (plexiglass, lucite, etc). The greater the difference between the thickness of the sawblade plate and the widgth of the tips of the carbide, the less melting and stringyness you will get.

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

Heat is your only real problem with plastics.

As a general proposition the TS runs a tad fast but with the right6 blades you can do production plastic work on the TS.

Delrin is fairly lubricious so it'll cut like butter.

[Fred Hargis]

We used to cut it ourselves all the time when I had a day job. We used a Unisaw with a negative hook blade. It had quite a few application on our machinery.

[Alan Schwabacher]

I once needed some parts machined out of another plastic, and the machinist kept trying to talk me into using Delrin, which would not work in my case for chemical resistance reasons (acid destroys it.) From that I concluded that it machines very nicely.

[thomas struth]

Thanks all for the feedback! Looks like this will be easy.

[John Thompson]

If it does over-heat a tad and you get the little stringy things on the outer edge.. it comes off easily with a commercial razor blade by chamfering (holding at a 45* degree angle but.. if you use a pull stroke.. watch your finger as it slices much easier than the plactic. Trust me on that... ;)

Sarge..