I'm in the process of making myself a nice acrylic case for a multimedia PC, and I'm in need of knowing how to drill acrylic. I remember reading somewhere (I don't know where, link?) that drilling acrylic with regular bits isn't reccomended. However, I have no choice, I don't have enough cash to go out and buy brand new drill bits. So how do I do it with those? I think there was something about reversing and not putting much pressure. Help please?
you can use regular metal drill bits and some people have had success using them slowly and backwards. I have new/sharp metal bits and if you drill slowly they work fine. You can take some precautions to insure good drilling: sandwich the acrylic beween two solid pieces of scrap material like mdf or something that reduces the chance of chipping the entrance and the exit of the drilling. Start with smaller bits and use them as pilot drillings and work your way up in size until you have the size hole you need. Cell cast acrylic drills much easier than extruded (the cheap stuff found at local HW stores) which helps a lot.
use thick cellotape or insulating tape on the area to be drilled its will stop rough or chipped holes
Use lexan/polycarbonate it works pretty much just like metal. You can use metal bits, you can file it, sand it, mill it, and it never cracks. I had a piece in a vertical mill making a hole in it (always use the right tool ) it was bowed from the vice, but it never cracked under the pressure, or shattered or anything. (I was worried about it spinging out of the vice though, but it didn't) I could rant on about lexan for hours, but I'll spare you.
I think i read somewhere (prob here) that taking a normal drill bit and drilling it into a concrete bock / slab blunts the bit enough to stop it grabbing the plastic and damaging it, just going for a dig around to see if i can find where it was said
Well, it's official, I should learn to read. It turns out that the label on the sheet itself says that for drilling I can use a standard wood or metal bit. It's Optix Acrylic Safety Glass. It's not really that expensive at $17CDN for a 30"x32"x0.080" sheet. I was wondering because it was starting to take a looong time to drill through that backwards, slowly and with cello tape on both sides. 20min for a single hole is ridiculous. Mind you I'll still drill relatively slowly and with cello to make sure that the hole has nice entrances and exits.
I actually just drilled out holes to mount a fan in my side window. The window is just generic, cheap acrylic sheet, that I picked up at a hardware store. I just used a plain old (never used) wood bit, let the drill do most of the work, and got nice clean holes. I didn't back the drill off at any point, just went nice and slow. What I'm having some fun trying to drill is, 1/4" holes in the ends of 5/16" acrylic rods. I don't have a vice (no workshop), so I have my wife hold the piece, and then slowly drill a small pilot hole, then follow up with the larger hole. The problem is, I can't get the first hole centered, so the second hole tends to crack the sides... Going to try to create the first hole next time using just a pin vise (small hand held hobbyist drill), and make the center hole, then try again. Jason A.
