Drilling through acrylic help

[Luke Culpin]

Signgeer sell an actual acrylic drill bit, you’ll be amazed at the difference compared to a standard drill bit

[John Lyus]

Like a guy once said to me…"if YouTube can’t fix it, nothing can fix it". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWAMdmJPdhg

I’ve seen the masking tape and WD 40 before.

[Peter Johnson]

I had to drill an acrylic sign the other week. Big mistake as I could have had the holes drilled during manufacture.

Anyway, as stated above, you can actually buy drill bits specifically for plastic/acrylic (I think it’s the way they design and sharpen the actual head of the drill so it isn’t as severe and ‘grabby’).

I only had to drill an 8mm hole, but I started with a 3mm drill bit, on a very, VERY slow speed. Then onto a 4mm, then a 5 etc. In fact, I think I may have gone up only 0.4 or 0.5mm in some steps. Took me ages, and very stressful. But it worked okay.

Also, I believe it’s better to drill them on a pillar drill if possible, because if the holes are slightly angled, you could still crack the panel when you tighten up the stand-offs and they try to straighten up.

[Martin Lemiesz]

We drill acrylic with HSS bits without a problem all you need to romember is not to press to hard and have the exit of the hole supported – we use ofcuts of foamex to drill on. It’s when the drill bit has very litle material left to scrape off where the risky part is if you push to hard on the bit or have nothing on the back of the panel you will simply crack/push through the remaining thin layer. Another way is to use blunt bit plus support as above.

[Stephen Ingham]

Thanks guys for the replies all very helpful

Stephen

[Gil Johnson]

We found that these work really well.

[Andrew O Brien]

If using a Hss bit I blunt it by drilling into concrete or brick. Been along time since I’ve cracked acrylic since doing that. No pilot straight in with an 8mm