-
Cutting aluminium composite board, advice please?
Hi guys.
I just wondered how people cut their di bond boarding.
I generally get mine cut to size for specific jobs but I’m getting the off cuts from each order.
Is there a way I can do a neat trim without the expense of a wall saw?
Many thanks -
9 Replies
-
Hi Gary,
Get a steel rule and a Stanley knife and score one side as deep as you can. Then break in two over your knee
-
Score and snap, as James said, but go over the rough edge with a hand plane a few times, and the edge will be better than the edge left with a saw.
-
smaller bits I will do as mentioned above and use a knife / snap, cut right through to the other side before snapping for best result. always cut on the rear of what will be the face too, the side you cut will have a large sharp ridge to get rid of, the face uncut / snapped wil have a smooth finish.
for larger panels I have a battery skillsaw (metabo 18v that shares batteries with all my drills, sanders, grinders, jugsaw etc), set the blade depth just enough to cut through, use a fine tooth blade and go slowly, you’ll still want to finish the edges but much easier than long cuts with a blade.
alternatively buy a keencut evolution, or similar. I keep saying ‘one day’ but never get around to it!
-
Keencut is also on our list.
We are same as everyone else. Although we do first score or two with scalpel then onto Stanley Knife.
When taking small slices off we still do the score but use the plyers to snap it off. Not going to use a 30mm wise strip anyway. Saves cutting all the way or breaking my poor twiglets for fingers
-
We use a keencut steeltrak to cut most of our acm which gives a nice neat finish but tends to bend the sheet a bit near the bottom. I’ve found with certain brands instead of pressing hard with your knife you can snap it easily after scoring it extremely lightly. This prevents the edges rising as the blade cuts in. Still tends to need finished all the same.
-
I use a cut coaster and safety ruler from Signgeer. Primarily i use it for trimming vinyl on the bench then when the blade starts to get blunt it gets used for scoring AC
-
Thanks for the replies.
I’ll give it a go.
I had fitted prints to the sheet I needed to cut originally and as you’ve said, when I cut them with the Stanley the edges bulged.
I’ll trim the boards first in future and clean them up before fitting the prints 😉 -
quote Gary Thornton:Thanks for the replies.
I’ll give it a go.
I had fitted prints to the sheet I needed to cut originally and as you’ve said, when I cut them with the Stanley the edges bulged.
I’ll trim the boards first in future and clean them up before fitting the prints 😉As I mentioned before, try scoring very lightly. On some brands of acm its amazing how light you can score it to get it to snap. Helps massively with the raised edges 🙂
-
I cut with the evolution also even though it’s geared more towards foam and less tougher stuff.
Log in to reply.