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View Full Version : cutting acrylic/plexiglass??



Fred Voorhees
04-26-2005, 8:06 PM
Here's the deal guys - I am in the process of building my poker table and I am incorporating deep well recesses to hold beverage cups and beer/soda cans in the hopes of preventing any accidental spills.

I happened to get very lucky at work and worked with a material that came in rolls and at the ends of the rolls were these plastic inserts to keep the rolls still in their packages. They just so happened to just the right inside diameter size to hold a regulation sized beer/soda can. The only problem is that they don't have bottoms to them. I thought that I could epoxy a plastic or plexiglass disc in the bottom and that would be that. And I still think that that is absolutely possible.

I checked at the local HD tonight and they only had clear plexiglass and I am hoping to find black to match the plastic wells. My biggest concern is cutting the discs out of a sheet of material. What is my best option as far as cutting? I am thinking the bandsaw, but I am concerned about possibly cracking the material. Is this a concern? Also, what about any heat that is generated by the cutting operation - would this adversely effect the outcome? I plan on cutting the discs a smidge large and then sanding them down to proper size on a sanding wheel.

Any thoughts?

I have attached two pics to help in understanding what I am doing. The first pic is of the plastic well sitting in a recess that will have another top lamination of solid oak on top. The second pic is a side view of one of the eight segments that will comprise the perimeter of the poker playing surface. You can see the well hanging below the segment. The "lip" on the inner edge of the bottom lamination is what the actual felt covered playing surface is going to sit on and be screwed down to when put together.

Tony Falotico
04-26-2005, 8:17 PM
I have cut Plexiglass on a scroll saw. The problem I had was generating too much heat that melts the Plexiglass back together. It was years ago, I finally got the right of combination blade and speed and was very successful with it. I cut animal patterns for Noah's Ark, used them for years. I used too fine a blade, by going to a courser toothed blade it worked better.

Pat Monahan
04-27-2005, 1:58 AM
Fred
Many moons ago in grade 8, we taped the front and back with masking tape along the cut line to prevent scratches, put it in a vise and cut it with a coping saw. Then file the edge so there were no saw marks. the edge was polished on a bench type grinder with some sort of cloth wheel - sorry I can't remember exactly what it was. The whole process was quick and easy - and no heat issues. Just a thought.
Pat

John Motzi
04-27-2005, 5:54 AM
I make acrylic base plates for my router by cutting the material to rough shape on the bandsaw & then template routing to final shape. As long as you cut the blank to just slightly oversize then you should be able to template route with no problem.

John Motzi
Downingtown, PA

Jay Albrandt
04-30-2005, 12:52 AM
How about an adjustable circle cutter mounted in a drill press. Run it at a very slow speed?

Ken Fitzgerald
04-30-2005, 8:08 AM
Fred...many years ago I cut my share of plexiglass. As mentioned by others, speed is your worst enemy. You can actually melt the plexi if you go to fast and you can imagine what that will do to a saw blade. I was using a jig saw at the time. As recommended by others, use slow speed; if necessary go to a coarser blade; cut oversize and file/sand to fit.

Bob Tate
04-30-2005, 8:18 AM
If you were to cut your plastic with a scroll saw, here is a trick from the scrollsawyers. Cover the entire surface with 3M Clear Packing Tape. It lubricates the cut as you go. It really helps the cut from melting back together. Sound wierd? I was skeptical too. I cut Lexan that way on the scroll saw and it worked great.

Keith Cope
04-30-2005, 8:15 PM
Fred,

you can see material fabricating guides online, I know that acrylite fabrication tech briefs are available on the San Diego Plastics website.

I've done some work with acrylic sheets, it machines fairly well as long as you keep the heat generated under control.

Fred Voorhees
05-01-2005, 11:58 AM
Thanks to everyone that made suggestions. As it turned out, it didn't need to be all of the fretting that was endured. I first tried to use a self leveling two part epoxy simply poured into the holders. The package stated that it wasn't meant for the type of plastic that these were made of and sure enough, after twenty four hours, I could simply push the hard disk right out of the container.

I purchased a small sheet of Lexan from the borg and it was very easy to cut on the bandsaw. No heat, no melting of the product. It was a piece of cake. I cut oversize and then sanded down to size with a disk sander mounted on my lathe. A special super glue for plastics made easy work of attaching the clear disks to the bottom of the containers.