Cutting/Scoring lightweight lexan for RC car wings

[kart45 6]

So we were out in the shop last night, drinkin a few beers, and thought man it would be sweet to build a dual stage wing for our RC Sprint Car... 

So after much weeping and knashing of teeth, it came to pass 

The main question here is we have scaled cad drawings that we can export to .eps and lexan sheets ready to cut. Anybody have experience cutting or scoring this material? Do I even dare feed it through the trusty PCUT?

[JoeBlow 5]

Great Job 

[Rob28x 0]

Nice here's my Sprinter after I did the decal job. It doesn't look like that anymore though.

[kart45 6]

Sweet Slider Rob! I can't concentrate to get the details that small like those stars 

Thanks for the nice comments on the wing. It looks cool, but one "derby night" last night at our track and we found out that lexan isnt so sturdy without a lot of support 

Do you guys have any experience cutting/scoring lexan with a plotter though?

This wing was cut by hand; we are curious if the PCUT can handle it 

[Team Satan 1]

Theres only one way to find out, give it a go.

You will need to slow down the cutting speed and adjust the blade height, so you don't

cut through the cutting strip.

Otherwise, run a few strips of masking tape to protect the cutting strip.

[Rob28x 0]

Yeah I would just try it. I bet it will score/snap ok.

[CRD 9]

Hi,

I would advice to use a carrier sheet where you tape the lexan sheet onto.

If the score goes through the lexan it will score the carrier sheet not the strip.

See this picture.

http://forum.uscutter.com/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=13951.0;attach=29831;image

If you like to glue lexan use chloroform ( i know you can do different things with it).

That is what I learned at technical school about polycarbonate (lexan) if I remembered well.

[sarconastic 29]

Hey Kart,

a tip for you on the wings and support. on the side wings, lay the flat side pieces over the edge of a table  about 3/8 to 1/2", heat it up with a heat gun ( be very careful not to overheat) the bend the edge down about a 1/4 " or so. This put a nice rib in the edge that makes it way stronger. I built a couple of these several years back, couldn't justify the $200 for the barts kit. We make the actual center wing out of a piece of thin aluminum that you have to heat and bend around a piece of 1/2" tubing to get aerofoil wing design.

Good looking work BTW:

Kevin

[Tempted Graphics 0]

Man I wish I had a place to still do this I am sittin on thousands of dollars of RC I can do nothing with....SUcks

[sarconastic 29]

Tempted,

if your interested I have all the stuff for a track for sale. We ran the local RC club here for about 6 years, and when things started dropping off, we put the Carpet, Barrier walls and all the other stuff in storage. My partner still has it in his shed, we are in SW Iowa. The track can be setup two ways. we have 3 strips of carpet, I believe 90 feet long. So you can set it up something like 45 X 65 oval or 45 x 90 Trioval,, Our last configuration was  Trioval, it was great for racing. We used to rent the local Armory and set it up on Sundays for races. We just have a manual computer counting system, but it's cheap to get going.

check out http://sarconastic.tripod.com/tinfo.htm for a picture of the track.

Kevin

[kart45 6]

We race in our backyards  ;D

I hauled a couple pickup loads of clay in for a little bullring in my backyard

and thanks for the tips sarconastic, will be trying that out on future projects :thumbsup:

[Team Satan 1]

The walls would look good with signage, checkered flags and etc.

Know any sign writers? 

[kart45 6]

Wall-art in process My car makes some cool stripes

It gets in the way of beer-drinkin though...

That signature is awesome, I'm pretty sure I'm gonna be makin t-shirts with that on the back (with your approval :))