Methods for cooling plexiglas while cutting it?

[Henry100]

I wonder if putting ice cubes near the guide line,while cutting plexiglas with a jigsaw or circular saw,could be effective as a cooling method.

[troylee]

it would cause more damage than good!!!!!!! hows it been henry????been awhile since i heard from ya.....

[Henry100]

Fine,thanks!I had decided to take a break for a while from the forum and here I am again.Fresh and ready for even more contributions to the hobby than before!

[troylee]

roflmao......man if your acrylic is melting while you are cutting it, you got yourself some garbage material..lol....use high quality cast and it wont melt...

[kcress]

The best way to cool it is to surprise it!

You need to cut faster. Your cutting speed is important to keeping the cutter cool. You cool the cutter by having it plow thru the material. If you dawdle along, you will melt it, and there is no good way to solve that.

If you can't move fast enough then the most likely reason is your tool is far too dull. If it's not the tool sharpness then you have too little horsepower to cut fast enough.

What are you trying to cut out?

[stugray]

Henry100,

I have never had good luck with any jigsaw cutting of acrylic.
Circular-saws ( tablesaw preferrably ) work fine if you clean up the cut with a router, trim bit & guide afterwards.



Anybody seen my chicken?

Maybe if you Cryo-treated your jigsaw blades you would have less build up of the acrylic on the blade?

Oh and tempering the acrylic before trying to cut it works wonders ( or buy cast.... ) Oh, and then after too....

Stu

[firewill65]

Try putting your blade on backwards on your circular saw...I've heard that works better.

[troylee]

honestly if you blades in the freezer for a couple hours first it will work like a champ....:)

[jerryz]

I just use a cheap crosscut blade and it works fine. clean it up with a router or a little sanding depending on if its for display or backroom and its gtg. Melting??? Who gets melting? Is this a troll???

[troylee]

fwiw i cut 1" thick acrylic all the time with a jigsaw and have no problems.......get a good high quality saw like a bosch and use bosch blade numbers t101d on real thick stuff and t101a0 for 1/2" and thinner you wont have any problems at all.....given that you are using a good cell cast material........or just freeze your blades like i mentioned before....lol...

[areze]

freezing blades helps? I would think that the friction would create the same heat for the acrylic, and the blade would warm up almost instantly anyway.

ice wouldnt translate anything into the cut since its an insulator itself, and youll probably cut your finger off trying to get the ice in there anyway. plus cut slower due to the ackwardness of it all.

[troylee]

lol........no it's a long story......henry is just always trying to re-invent the wheel.......:)

[Donw]

I think Kcress was most accurate its all about tool sharpness and speed no matter if its cast or extruded. Puting a blade in the freezer won't do a thing the metal won't retain the temperature. Puting a carbide blade on a circular or table saw backward may end up throwing a tip into your skull. My mills use compressed air to cool the tool tips. Might work with a saw if you don't want to invest in the right tools for the job.

Don

[areze]

Id think water could also do it...

Ive never had a problem. just make sure the blade depth is shallow so your not rubbing 10" of blade across the cut, and do it as fast as you can without chipping it.

the edge will probably need to be finished with a router or jointer anyway.

[stugray]

The cryo-treatment comment was partially meant as a joke.

However, as long as you dont try it with a carbide tipped blade, cryo-tempering can make a HUGE difference in steels and how they cut, retain a sharp edge, and helps in re-sharpening.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryogenic_tempering

Stu

[troylee]

wow i guess i won't post jokes anymore you guys are very gullable......if you knew henry this would all make sense to ya......:)