I’m planning to cut some 3/16" acrylic with a hand held trim router. What bit would work best for that?
Also, I’ve never attempted to cut acrylic before so any tips or tricks would be welcome.
Thanks.
When I’ve cut acrylic by hand before I’ve used both regular brazed carbide bits as well as spiral flute end mills. Depending on what you’re doing, I’d try to cut it to size first with a jigsaw or something and then trim it accordingly. That’ll be a lot less mess and a lighter cutting load will lead to less heat and less force.
The main thing with acrylic is that it gets hot, then it melts and gets gummy, sticks to your bits etc. You want to be making good progress so you’re cutting good sized chips and using that to clear out the heat. The other thing is that it’s brittle so it’ll break if you go too hard on it. Either way with a few test cuts I’m sure you’ll be fine.
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I think I might go with this one, Bosch 85611M, Solid Carbide Double-Flute Acrylic Bit.
Here’s what Bosch has to say about this bit, “delivers high cutting performance in acrylic. Unique bit geometry produces an improved finish, reduces heat buildup and prevents welding in the cut”.
Again, comments, tips and tricks are welcome.
From a quick google, recommended chip load is 0.004" to 0.015" per tooth, so 0.1mm to 0.4mm per tooth or 0.2mm to 0.8mm per revolution. That’s quite a lot. If you have an adjustable speed router that you can dial back to 10k rpm then that’s 33mm/s to 130mm/s… 1.25" per second to 5" per second… That’s absolutely hoofing it along. Probably doable if you’re just trimming to a template or something but that’s moving.
Worth a try given that it’s a specific bit for acrylic, I guess, but at that price I would try to find a spiral carbide single flute bit. That’s what I used with good results and just tried to keep moving as fast as I was comfortable. Same as above, minimize the amount you’re cutting at a time to keep the cutting forces down and just go for it, speed wise.
Trying out that Bosch cutter today. Works well on long straight cuts, less so on detailed internal cuts. I think it would have been better on those if I’d used some compressed air to clear the chips. In any event, it got the job done.
BTW, The chips came out nice and clean, no issues at all with the chips welding to the work piece or each other
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