I have a block of nylon, approx. 50x65x280mm, and I need to cut a
15x65x280 slice from it. I've tried a slitting saw in my miller, but it gets hot, melts the nylon a bit, and jams - even at the lowest speed. A band saw does the same. A hand saw sort-of works, but it's *very* slow and very hard work. Any ideas please?I find you just have to take your time.
Martin P
*Fast* feed, very sharp tool, maybe coolant. At least that works great for PA.
Nick
In essence, if using a powered saw you ideally need to cut this under water to reduce heat build up and remove 'chips'. Unfortunately, I don't think even a good flow of coolant (if your saw has that feature) is adequate. This is obviously going to make an awful mess of your bandsaw though! Most plastics are difficult to work in the home environment due to heat - obviously in industry they have advanced techniques /tools. If its a one-off, it'll be less trouble to just use a fine hand saw and as Martin says - go slowly. Mike H
Use a woodsaw, it's just like cutting hard wood.
Stu G
Use the slitting saw with a constant stream of soapy water - it helps reduce friction & take away heat. A freshly sharped cutter helps, too. Use polythene sheeting with the edges held up to keep the coolant out of the machine & from spraying around.
hth Guy
Er, no, it isn't at all like cutting hardwood. The nylon tends to swell and grip the saw; I tried both cross and rip cut and couldn't get deeper than about 50mm.
That sounds like it would work; I just wish I'd read it a few hours ago.
I eventually managed to do it with a thin side and face cutter which worked only a little better than the slitting saw. I managed to cut a groove about 25mm deep along both sides and then tried to finish with a wood-saw (tried both cross and rip). It didn't work - the nylon seemed to swell and grip the blade after about 50mm and made it almost impossible to get the saw out of the cut, let alone continue sawing. Because the grooves were wider than the slitting saw I was able to complete the job with that, but it wasn't easy.
Rather unexpectedly, the block and slice are now bowed - hollow side is the cut side, slice more than the block. I'm hoping that its the result of the heat driving off absorbed water, and that it will straighten again.
Just thought you might like to know.
More likely to be the result of the relief of internal stress, and that it won't.
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