Edit: Sorry folks - Disclaimer: The site doesn’t have an option to calculate shipping. I placed a fairly big order and the invoice was e-mailed today. I did order some 1/8 inch Rotary Engravable, so it was pretty heavy and shipping was up there, but I thought it was still a great price overall. Just not cheap as dirt!
I got an e-mail from BF Plastics. Their Garage Sale is on again. They primarily have 2 tone engravable plastic sheets on sale. Some are rotary only, so watch out for that, but I took advantage of the sale in the past and have made a lot of cool items. These are discontinued items, so colors are limited and it is first come first served. You may order and find that a particular item was sold out by the time they got to filling your order. Cost is $2.50 per 12x24 sheet in various thicknesses. Here’s the site address and some samples of just a few things I’ve done in the past.
I ordered about 50 sheets last June and shipping for them was about $30. A fair price for shipping heavy acrylic. Last year they had some thicker stock on sale also. More weight. They are also super responsive. You could probably call tomorrow and get a quote on shipping. May allow cancellation if cost is too high.
grabbed a few sheets. wonder if i got there late and some of the better stuff had been picked over or if there’s a reason a lot of that was discontinued.
You have to go into the main site area and look up the particulars for that kind of plastic to be sure. Some of them do have “laserable” in the descriptions.
For those of us who just got the Basic model (and therefore can’t use the pass through to cut it down to size), what do people recommend for cutting 12x24 sheets to fit inside the bed?
He’s got both a table saw and a radial arm saw. I think he used the table saw to cut them down…but…those are so incredibly dangerous I don’t recommend that anyone use them without about a bajillion safeguards in place.
Any power saw that you’re comfortable with will work…they don’t have to be perfect.
Oh, and these (garage sale) plastics are probably thin enough to score and snap with a manual plastic cutter and a straight edge. I haven’t seen them yet, but that’s how I do my own thin acrylics without bothering him.
Score with something sharp…reciprocating metal saw blade works well (the long teeth on the wood blades seem to catch to easily), then snap it over a sharp edge (other sheets, table edge etc)
It sounds kinda funny, and im probably one of the very few who can do this, but I bring my 24” pieces to work and use the larger bed universal laser there to cut them down.
