Cutting Plastic the Hard Way

Here at TechShop in San Jose, we have cool ways to cut and manipulate plastic. You can use our lasers, our routers, our mills and our saws to cut plastic shapes. However, sometimes you just need a quick cut. Luckily, with the tools in our tool coral, this is possible. Using only a box cutter and a ruler (and a clamp if you need one) you too can cut plastic.

*for this tutorial, i used scrap plastic. You should never take the protective film off of your plastic until the last possible minute to avoid scratches.

using a straight edge (ruler) score a line into your plastic

continue to score your plastic along this line until it is deep and noticeable.

Using tension, crack the plastic along your score line

Ta-duh! your plastic is now separated