Sooner or later every homemaker faces the fact that it is necessary to cut a piece of flat sheet material (it does not matter what kind). This task can be solved quickly and easily with the help of a homemade cutter.
Cutter Advantage:
Of course, you can just flatten the sheet material with a hacksaw or cut it with metal shears – but in both cases there can be some difficulties. The saw will not cut evenly, even if you are sawing under a ruler, it can walk. And to cut with metal scissors – you will have to bend the material, which in many cases is not possible and not desirable. Special difficulties may arise when cutting Plexiglas or thick getinax.
What do you do in this case, and what do you use to cut neatly? Many of you have already guessed that we are talking about the good old cutter, which will always come to the rescue when working with sheet materials. The shape of the cutter is shown in Figure 1.
This simple device can be made from any piece of good strong steel, if you have such a piece at hand. You can use a piece of broken hacksaw blade. Wrap the handle with wire or insulating tape Figure 2.
Personally, I favor comfortable wooden handles, which can be purchased at any carpentry store Figure 3.
Recommendations for use of the torch:
After you have coped with making the cutter, you can start working with it. For an even and quality cut you need a ruler, preferably iron, and a rough knowledge of the properties of the material you intend to cut.
Place the ruler near the cutting line, lean the cutting edge (Figure 4) against the line and with slight pressure, run it along the ruler. Without removing the ruler, run a few more times (depending on the thickness of the material).
After shaking off the shavings, then lean your sheet against the flat edge of the table along the cut line and chip your workpiece. That’s it, all you have to do is sand the break line if you need to.
