Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!ucsd!helios.ee.lbl.gov!nosc!crash!simpact!jeh
From: jeh@simpact.com
Newsgroups: sci.electronics
Subject: Re: Project Enclosures
Message-ID: <847.25aff5f4@simpact.com>
Date: 14 Jan 90 11:45:56 GMT
References: <126@gazette.bcm.tmc.edu> <25869@cup.portal.com>
Organization: Simpact Associates, San Diego CA
Lines: 25

In article <25869@cup.portal.com>, mmm@cup.portal.com
 (Mark Robert Thorson) writes:
> You can also cut it with a straight handsaw, like what you would use on
> plywood.  That produces a cleaner edge.  Most power tools don't work very
> well on Plexiglas.

In my limited experience, a small table saw will work fine, PROVIDED that you 
have a carbide-tipped blade in it.  Expensive, but will last a long time.  
Or, the Plexiglas dealers sell special blades for the purpose.  But scribe 
cutting as described by Mark is fine for working with eighth-inch stuff.  
In quarter-inch I've usually found that the scriber makes too curved an 
edge for gluing -- I don't feel like filing down variations that large.  
No doubt my technique needs to be improved. 

Then there's flame polishing of the cut edges.  When one of your edges is
going to be seen, you want it smooth.  You can polish it with 'n' successive
grades of grit on a bench grinder.... or you can flame-polish it in a few
minutes with a Bernz-O-Matic torch.  Again, the plex dealer will have 
brochures telling you how to do this.  Naturally you will not get it right
the first time, but that's what your cutoffs are for... 

	--- Jamie Hanrahan, Simpact Associates, San Diego CA
Chair, VMSnet [DECUS uucp] and Internals Working Groups, DECUS VAX Systems SIG 
Internet:  jeh@simpact.com, or if that fails, jeh@crash.cts.com
Uucp:  ...{crash,scubed,decwrl}!simpact!jeh