# How to cut plexiglass



## keitarosan (Apr 21, 2010)

Anyone here knows how to cut plexiglass? I was thinking of using a regular glass cutter as I have to access to a power saw. I do have a rotary tool though but I was thinking of using it for finer tweaking.


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## davefrombc (Apr 21, 2010)

You can't cut plexi with a regular glass cutter.. you will need a saw blade designed for cutting plastics; although a fine tooth regular saw blade will cut it .
It depends on how thick the plexi-glass is and what you will be doing with it, but you can cut thin plexi by scoring it very deeply then snapping it over a straight edge, very similar to glass.. 
A regular glass cutter creates tiny stress cracks in glass that carry through it when you put pressure on the scribed line .. All a glass cutter would do is create a small pressed in groove in the plexi..... if you press very hard .. That will not break true like glass does. You need to use a sharp edge, not a rotating wheel like in a glass cutter. To do plexi , you need to use that sharp point to scribe a line in the plexi, going over it several times to create a deep score. The plexi should snap along that score line if you make it deep enough .. To learn just how deep you need to make it , practice on some scrap pieces of the thickness you want to work with.


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## Jonney_boy (Apr 28, 2010)

table saw with a "fine" blade... I use the blade that came with my chop saw and it works well... approx 60 tooth cross cutting.

Router with a straight edge works well also..

Jig saw.. um.... NO.. I've tried metal blades, wood blades, etc.. just seems to "hack" it to pieces.


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## Buddiechrist (Apr 21, 2010)

You can use multiple things here.
I do alot of plexi glass work in the yacht industry.
Basically any fine blade will do, table saw, jig saw, band saw etc
One thing I will tell you is do not go fast or you will chip the hell out of it, don't go to slow or you'll cause it to melt, to avoid this take a little silicone lube and a few pieces of glass spray the blade and give it a try. Don't forget to wipe the lube off before applying anything.


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## keitarosan (Apr 21, 2010)

i'm out of luck with power tools, that's the thing. i'll try the plexiglass cutting tool and see what it does.

can i use coping saw for thicker plexis??


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