Plastic Cutters

Sheet cutters are blades with handles made of plastic or rubber used to precisely trim plastic sheets. Plastic tube cutters create efficient, clean cuts in piping and pipefitting processes. Therefore, plastic tube cutters are preferable to other equipment like hacksaws.

Types of Plastic Cutting Methods

Routing and trimming are plastic cutting methods often used when machining plastic parts into finished goods. The secret to successfully machining plastic is to align the cutter design with the material's machining properties. Although the cutter/material properties are the main focus, other elements like coding and fixturing methods are equally important.

Routing

When routing polymers, it’s best to have fast feed rates with high-quality finishes. It can be difficult to cut plastic chips without rewelding them to the completed surface, especially when working with softer plastics. If the chips reweld to the surface, it could result in a subpar edge finish. The key to effective plastics machining is to avoid this rewelding and provide a fine edge finish while achieving high feed rates.

Keeping the chips cold is the key to avoiding rewelding with fast feeding rates. But this is only sometimes feasible due to programming restrictions. For example, when cutting radii and corners, most routers have acceleration, deceleration, and curve speed restrictions. When possible, avoid dead stops. The router may pause and loiter while changing directions when cutting outside corners.

Correct Spoil Board Technique

Router bits may also linger in the opening dip of an inside cut. If the bit is not spiral or sheared, it will constantly re-contact the cut surface when boring, preventing the chips from being evacuated. There is a “ramp in” technique where one can gradually lower the bit as it moves forward to minimize leaving chips in the cut. Ramp programming to eliminate lingering might lengthen the routing path. Yet it can be economically viable because the tools won’t erode as quickly.

Fixturing

When cutting plastics, the fixturing needs to be dependable and sturdy. Any other outcome will eventually result in a subpar edge finish, a shortened tool life, or shattered tools. However, some particular methods and arrangements can result in an effective hold-down system.

Cutting Soft Plastics

When cutting soft plastics, the large chips produced during the machining are easily expelled from the router tip’s path. When routing soft plastics, manufacturers should remove long, curled chips from the material's face. These chips come loose easily, and edge burring or fuzzing is rare, if not nonexistent. As a result, manufacturers can cut soft plastics without worrying about abrasive or impact wear. The tool’s rake angle can be rather large, making it simple to separate a chip from the materials. As a result, the part moves less because of the cutting pressure and at quick feed rates.

Cutting Hard Plastics

When cutting hard plastics, the excess is typically tiny shards that mimic crystalline bits or dust. Instead of soft-plastic chips, hard-plastic waste is created by repeatedly breaking the underlying material into tiny, separate bits.