Whilst slaving over the kitchen sink/vacuum cleaner/stove etc I had an idea for a better styrene sheet cutter. I don't know if others suffer from this problem but whilst cutting styrene sometimes the ruler moves while scribing or the piece being cut is small etc etc. Anyway I have come up with a design for a Guilotine style cutter scriber using a couple of stainless rods and some of those linear bearings as used in 3d printers. It will take standard stanley knife double-ended blades and be adjustable for depth.
In one of those few quiet moments when not cooking cleaning etc I sat down and designed the components and this is the result
I've ordered the bits, it's not going to be cheap as the components come to about £25 but if it works it should be quite handy.
I'll post pics as the design/build evolves and when I get it finished and working I will happily forward the design to those of you with access to 3d printers if you are interested.
That's how mat cutters work. They're set up to be extremely precise not only in measurement, but where the blade tip penetrates since mats are cut from the back and overlaps at corners are lousy looking for finished work. Large mat board can be very expensive and going an eighth of an inch too far renders them garbage.
Hi Pete, I've got one of those and the bar flexes - I tried it but it didn't work unfortunately.
Basically what's needed is something that caters for different thicknesses of material, grips the material firmly, allows adjustment of the depth of cut/score, and cuts/scribes smoothly across the entire width. The aluminium angle will provide constant pressure across the material, a spring on the pivot allows for different thicknesses of material, the blade height adjustment allows for different thicknesses of cut/scribe, and the bars/linear bearings will provide the smoothness/ease of cut.
Hi Condor, I've looked at a few but they don't have a means of securing the item being cut, but if the current approach doesn't work then I'll check them out to see if they could be modified.
An easy way to stop the styrene sheet moving, just do one of the following:
1. glue a strip of bicycle inner tube to the back of the ruler.
2. glue strips of bicycle inner tube onto the work surface.
3. glue a piece of that grippy mesh stuff that you can buy in B&Q onto the work surface.
I just stuck a piece of paper masking tape on the back of my ruler, it creates enough friction to stop a steel ruler from sliding about. The trick is to make the first few scorings very lightly, the tip of the blade tends to run away from the edge of the ruler if too much pressure is applied. Build up pressure when there is a groove for the blade to drop into.
There are various DIY 3D printed laser cutters on the web, old scanners and flatbed printers make a good base, but you can't cut styrene with a laser, it has to be ABS.
You can even print a clamp and attach a laser to a 3D printer and print in 2D to cut the shapes out.
I just got a ruler through the post this morning with cork on the back, hopefully this will stop some of the slippage. I dont own a 3d printer so your design can't help me. The ruler will have to do.
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