Need an Idea for a 1/8" Hardboard Substitute

[jerrye]

I use this to cut plastic sheeting, everything from acrylic to UHMW, in thicknesses from <1/8"->3/4", and find that it cuts fast and straight, and leaves a very clean finished edge.

 

[ScottM]

Before throwing out the baby with the bath water look at your cutting process. To reduce or eliminate fuzzies you should start with a new or recently sharpened fine tooth blade. Also use a zero clearance insert in your table saw.

 

[pviser]

I'd go with the 1/8" plywood already mentioned. This is readily and inexpensively available from Tower Hobbies. I keep a small inventory of these thin, high quality plywoods for a variety of uses.

 

[FlyingRon]

I'd use acrylic rather than lexan. Much easier to work with.

While the hook cutter is A tool for cutting plastic sheets, I'd disagree that it is the "proper" tool. We used bandsaws to cut acrylic sheets pretty much exclusively in the shops I worked in.

 

[patlaw]

Once again, I'm so confused.

My son needs to create an insert to replace a piece of glass that was in a table top. The first material we tried was 0.093" Lexan purchased from Lowe's. It's too thin. The next material was (what I think is) 1/8" hardwood plywood. It's too thick. Then, I tried a piece of hardboard. It's perfect. I thought hardboard was 1/8" thick. This piece measured 7/64", as I remember. How thick is 1/8" plywood?

The clear plastic drawers for the old Akro-Mils parts cabinets are very brittle. Are those polycarbonate or acrylic? Where to buy acrylic sheets?

 

[ehpoole]

Once again, I'm so confused.

My son needs to create an insert to replace a piece of glass that was in a table top. The first material we tried was 0.093" Lexan purchased from Lowe's. It's too thin. The next material was (what I think is) 1/8" hardwood plywood. It's too thick. Then, I tried a piece of hardboard. It's perfect. I thought hardboard was 1/8" thick. This piece measured 7/64", as I remember. How thick is 1/8" plywood?

The clear plastic drawers for the old Akro-Mils parts cabinets are very brittle. Are those polycarbonate or acrylic? Where to buy acrylic sheets?

When you get down to 1/4", and below, plywood thicknesses can vary a good bit as they are typically geared towards model building (particularly 1/8" and below), so you would have to measure on a case-by-case basis, though some may state their true thickness in mills if you look it up on the manufacturer's site. But, then, few plywoods are actually their stated nominal thickness in the same way that a modern 2x4 is no longer 2"x4".

The clear plastic drawers and dividers found in most parts drawers were typically polystyrene, which is a very hard but brittle plastic, and tends to become increasingly so with age. That said, Acryllic is fairly brittle in its own right and will shatter if subjected to too much stress, such as if using an over aggressive saw blade or drilling too large a hole in one go and the bit catching as it breaks through, or if simply bent too far or impacted too hard -- not nearly as brittle as glass by any measure, but still a brittle plastic. Polycarbonate is quite the opposite by comparison as it will exhibit controlled plastic deformation if excessively stressed rather than catastrophic failure like Acryllic, which is also why it performs well as ballistic armor in appropriate thicknesses.

You can often purchase polycarbonate (Lexan) and Acryllic (Plexiglass) from places such as Lowes, Home Depot, and Ace, as well as from many online retailers. However, the selection at big box stores seems to be decreasing in recent years and some locations seem to have entirely discontinued carrying such, while the same store further down the road may still do so, subject to the whims of management.

Complicating matters, some products that state 1/8" (0.125"), for example, are really rounded to the nearest standard metric dimension, such as 3mm (0.118") or 2.5mm (0.098"), or even 2.54mm (0.10"), so it is often best to measure such directly if you need a precise thickness and can not find the actual dimensions on the manufacturer's website or literature (just take a dial caliper with you while shopping). For example, 7/64" (0.1094") is often rounded to 2.75mm (0.1083").

 

[Mike Davis]

Back in the late 80s I made a control panel for a large concrete manufacturer. I used 1/4 inch thick black acrylic, silk screened the diagram, hole locations, and lettering. As far as I know it is still in use. I made two at the time and still have the second one.