Cutting Acrylic sheet

WKDOR

WKDOR

Registered
Country flag
Got some very good 3mm frosted acylic sheet from Trent Plastics - they offer an economical cutting service. But my attempt to cut it by scribe and snap using a standard Stanley knife has been a complete failure!

I now see that what I need is a cutter = scriber and have found three available in the UK

Olfa
a6f9a541c7e344869d2b2c7a61ec5961.jpg


ModelCraft
90a96220ab44464e8b419a5e1874317e.jpg


Tamiya
4a3d4e5aaea54bb3950d0996d8cec585.jpg


Has anybody got any experience of any of these that they can share please?

mike
 
Re:Acrylic sheet

I've used the Olfa (the top one) and found it very good, even on the thick grey plastic whose name has entirely escaped (it's three letters). I find that clamping the sheet down is essential for holding it in place.
 
Re:Acrylic sheet

The hooked cutters seem to be the best as they actually score the plastic and remove a small V. Way way back I made a model of a fancy glass house using that technique developed the entire thing onto a flat sheet, drilled a 1/32hole at each intersection then scribed between holes and it was snap and glue...
 
Re:Acrylic sheet

The Olfa cutter is absolutely ideal when folding all types of modeling plastics sheet materials into box shapes - by deep scoring and folding to enable precise corners. With practice the right amount of scoring removes sufficient material to fold and glue without struggling to get a clean and accurate corner. Best tool that I have found to date for building "clinker" built boat hulls, as cutting precise tapered curves is dead easy. Cutting slots through plastic sheet is easy too. Just don't try it on a flexible cutting mat. Two different blade styles are generally available and spare blades are easy to obtain. There are two sizes of the yellow handled tool currently easily available.

Cheers

Roy H
 
Re:Acrylic sheet


Many Thanks to Trev and Roy too.

Thats two votes for Olfa and I see on another forum that they are also the manufacturer of at least the Tamiya blades too. So its looking like a no-brainer then.

mike
 
Re:Acrylic sheet

I found that I could use my 255mm chop saw with perfect results even though the blade is not a fine cut one. All that is needed is to push the blade through VERY VERY slowly.
Not a lot of help I suppose if you don't have a chop saw!
 
Ordered the Olfa from Blades and Knives Direct (!) at the best price. They have a wide range of - well yes blades and knives. Next day delivery.

And it works a treat.

Thanks to all.

mike
 
There's lots of different tyopes of OLFA cutters available - which is the best for cutting plasticard (up to 3mm ?)
EDIT : Having read the posts,. I reckon I've found the right one :) ....

"Olfa Heavy Duty Plastic & Laminate Cutter - PC-L"
 
I use the top Olfa, only problem that I have had, as pointed out, it cuts a V shape. Not always what you want when looking for square edges.
My main cutting technique now, involves a Record RSBS10 band saw. I use it on Acrylic, Polycarbonate and any other thicker "plastics" that I come across.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom