can you drill holes in plexi easily without it cracking? also, i want to put hinges kindof on it. you know anywhere i can get plexi hinges?
Yes you can drill holes in plexi easy. I'd recommond tapping off where you drilling with a couple layers of masking tape though, just incase the drill skips. There are bits made for plastic, those are the ones to get. Theres also holesaws made for plastic, once again those are the ones to go with. All drill bits have a recommonded usage lable on them some where, just look for the ones that say plastic. As far as hinges, do you mean hinges that can go on plexi glass? If so any metal hinge will do (can get the at Home Depot, Lowes, etc., the same places you can get the drill bits). Or do you mean plexi hinges? If you mean plexi hinges check out these here.
Drilling through plexi (and almost any material, now that I think about it) is made much easier by putting a sacrificial piece of scrap wood under it. When you see the wood coming out of the hole, it's time to stop drilling.
These are perfect for drilling plexi, plus the sharp point stops em slipping, you can get them from B&Q and they are pretty cheap.
B&Q is a very large DIY/ HARDWARE store, i can not remember what they are called but i am sure they are origonally made for drilling wood. I will have a look on the net and try and find the correct name. You could also save one of the pictures and print it off so that you buy the correct ones, they are quiet distinctive though.
They are known by a few names the third picture down on this site has a description of them, take a look, http://www.diydata.com/tool/drillbits/drillbits.htm
With normal drill bits I found it very hard to drill in plexi... untill I realized that it is simple with a 30000rpm drill
You may have to watch drilling to fast just incase the heat build up melts the plexi, funnily enough the description in that link states that they can be used on plastics, I didn,t know that origonally i just new they made a very very good job of cutting plexi without much effort or speed.
I just use normal drill bits at a low speed and low pressure to keep the cracks down... because I don't have any money to waste my bits on that kinda stuff.
thoes bits are called HSS(high speed steel), but i have herd that there are special bits called, Plexi point bits, but you can only get them from the US, thoes hss bits are fairly cheap aswell
those plxi points are awsome but rather expensive for what they are (basicly normal drill bit but dull) you can use a normal bit efectivly if you dull it by drillin into a cinder block or concreat wich is much cheaper
Plex suppliers should have info on what makes a 'plastic drill bit'. Or search Linears tag and goto his website, he also has that info there. Basically, I took a $10 black and decker drill set and anything over the width of a quarter, I moddified the bits with my dremel. First, I used the stone wheel to shape the points to 45 degree angles. The I used files to shape the cutting edges on the points for real digging capacity. But even with these bits in a slow drill press, I still use masking tape and a wooden board behind the piece Im drilling, safe than sorry. If you dont take every concievable step, it always seems like the very last hole you drill will be the one to make the crack/chip where you have to start all over again......
