Cutting Polycarbonate with TS blade?

[Teri McCarter]

How bad will I hurt my TS blade if I use it to cut about 10-15 cuts of some polycarbonate? I have a Frued 80t thin kirf. Will it melt the plastic or cut it? Wanted to ask first before cutting anything. I was going to stack two 1/4" pieces together to reduce the number of cuts. Would that be better or worse. I am going to make the overarm blade guard that Mike Cutler(I think that's who it was) posted on here.
I didn't want to have to buy special stuff to do a one time project.
Thanks,
Teri

[Quinn McCarthy]

Teri

I have used polycarbonate for several woodworking jigs. It cuts just fine on the table saw. It doesn't seem to melt at all. You can use a hole saw and sand it as well.

Hope that helps.

Quinn

[Chris Jenkins]

I have cut poly before with a regular 1/8" Kerf blade and did not have any problems with melting. I don't believe poly is a hard enough material to damage carbide, so I don't think you will have any problems there.

As far as running pieces together, I wouldn't do that. Poly is a pretty smooth surface, so if you stack them you might get one to slip on the other and you could have some problems there, least of which would be ruined poly.

Chris

BTW, you can lightly torch the sawn edges after to give it a cleaner look. I've never done it, but have seen it in magazines before.

[JayStPeter]

80t seems like a high tooth count for plastic. It will probably melt more. I think the plastic cutting blades are TCG w/ around 50 - 60t, but I'm doing that from memory so could be off.
I use a cheap 50t freud diablo tk combo blade as my plastic blade. Most of the cut plastic comes out nice. The melted plastic winds up on the blade. Thus, my dedicated blade (although I use it to cut Al also, which helps reduce the platic stuck to it :rolleyes: :D )

[Hoa Dinh]

I cut polycarbonate and acrylic many times with the TS and the BS without any problem. On the TS, I use an 80T fine cross-cut blade or when I'm . With a moderate feed rate, I don't think the plastic will melt.

Make sure to wear long sleeve shirt and eye protection. The plastic "shavings" fly farther than saw dust does.

I would not stack the pieces. They can slip during the cut. That can ruin the pieces and can be down right dangerous.

Just don't use a jig saw. The plastic will melt and stick to the blade. Don't ask me how I know.

[Teri McCarter]

Thanks, I think I will swap back to an older but not dull blade. I had a cheap 40 or 60t on it and just put the new 80t on this past weekend.

[Teri McCarter]

I may try a small cut with the 80 then swap and if need swap back. Just don't want to mess up a brand new blade.

The original plans for the blade guard mentioned stacking the pieces using double sided tape. I have cut wood like that before buy using 2 side tape then using masking tape in a few places around the whole thing and it worked real good. I got identical pieces.
I may try the double sided tape on some scrap and see if I can shift them by hand. If not then they will probably be ok. The cuts are all pretty small, nothing length.

Thanks for the info. I just love this forum.

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

How bad will I hurt my TS blade if I use it to cut about 10-15 cuts of some polycarbonate?

Nada zilch zip not at all

[JayStPeter]

I should clarify that I've cut a variety of types of plastic. HDPE and UHMW definitely melt onto the blade. I've cut polycarbonate, but with plastic goop already on the blade I'm not sure how much it contributed :cool: . I save my good blades for good wood and have a bunch of lesser blades for various other stuff.

[Dan Forman]

Even with double stick tape, I wouldn't stack the pieces. I cut some 1/4" polycarb for my blade guard, and found it wants to ride up on the blade much more than wood. It is very impact resistant, so this is natural. I found I had to apply pressure very near the leading edge of the matrerial in order to insure control. With twice as much material to cut through, it seems this would be magnified. Seems like it would also increase the chances of melting, with each tooth spending twice as much time encased in the plastic. For the slight bit of time saved, doesn't seem worth the risk.

I did find I got a better quality cut by raising the blade higher than normal, so that there was more down force applied.

Dan

[Teri McCarter]

Thanks Dan for the info. I am actually using a combination of your blade guard building thread and another on this forum to build my blade guard.