Lay the sheet on a flat surface and using a yardstick and a permanent marker or a grease marker measure and draw the.
Cutting acrylic sheets with jig saw.
Jigsaws ability to cut straight at angles and in a circular or another shape motion makes them versatile tools for cutting plexiglass along with a lot of your other woodworking needs.
This video shows how to easily cut acrylic sheet such as perspex lucite plexiglas optix oroglas acrylite sumipex cryolite etc.
Next hold the yardstick to the marked line and run the dull side of a utility knife along the yardstick to score the.
If you cut too fast the acrylic will melt from the heat the friction creates and your project will be a mess.
The advantage of using a jigsaw is the ability to cut shapes with rounded corners however cutting too slowly can melt the acrylic and applying too much pressure can cause the edges to chip.
This is done by drilling a hole in the plexiglass then placing the jigsaw blade in the hole.
Apply a strip of painter s tape to the cut line to prevent cracking.
Place the sheet over hard edge with groove side up.
Most saws can be used t.
Mark your cut line with a grease pen.
Use scoring knife to cut a narrow groove in the acrylic sheeting scoring preferably works on sheets less than 6 35mm in thickness.
Cover the cut line by sticking a line of wide painter s.
For the best results you ll want to support both sides of the cut line to reduce vibrations.
Set up the acrylic glass on 2 beams so that you can cut through it with the jigsaw.
How to cut plexiglass with a jigsaw.
Use a yard stick or ruler to roughly measure the length of plexiglas you wish to cut.
However the process requires following steps.
Place the plexiglas sheet on an even work bench or table.
Score again and again as many as 10 or 12 times.
To cut acrylic sheets with a jigsaw you will want a jigsaw with a good range of speed control and a variable speed control will help out a little.
If you get stuck at an angle pull the jigsaw out the way you came and cut from the other edge.
Push the jigsaw from the outer edge towards your body along the line you made so you can constantly keep your eye on the blade and the line.
Mark the area of sheet you want to cut.
Depending on the type of blade you use you will find that running the tool a t medium to low speeds is usually the best bet even though blades will be more important than speed overall.
