Proper blade for 2mm acrylic rod

[modella]

Could one of you experts recommend a blade for cutting 2mm acrylic rods? I guess more teeth are better. Any experiences? Will it cleanly shave off chips without melting?

[Charles Green]

There are "no melt" blades for cutting acrylic but their tooth-count is too course for your job.  You will need a fine tooth blade.  You can avoid the melting problem with any type of blade by melting a drop of wax or paraffin onto the acrylic at the cut site.  Heat from the blade's friction will melt the wax.  The melted wax will provide enough lubrication to keep the acrylic from melting.  When ripping a long piece, melt wax along the cut line to provide continuous lubrication. 

[modella]

Thanks, Charles. I never used wax as lubricant. Can you just wipe it off afterwards or what is the procedure ?

[Charles Green]

If the parts are to be glued, the wax must be removed.  Scraping most of it off followed by immersion, agitation and rubbing in hot soapy water is effective.  One of the many organic solvents may work but test before relying on it to clean your parts.  Depending on the type of acrylic the solvent may damage them.

[modella]

Thanks for sharing. I'll give that a try.

[druxey]

For small diameter rod, I've had good success using a sharp scalpel blade. Place the rod on a flat surface and roll it under the blade using a little pressure so that the rod is scored all around. Then simply snap the rod at the line.

[wefalck]

The original manufacturers of acrylic glass (Plexiglas) recommend using water as a lubricant. However, with such thin rod it is not really needed. Just use the finest piercing saw blade you can get and don't work too fast.

 

Scoring and snapping-off is also a procedure recommended by the manufacturers. Works for rods and sheets up to about 3 mm thickness.