Saturday, October 31, 2009

Cutting Thin Plywood








One of the problems when working with plywood is that you get bad tear out of the plywood surfaces when cutting with a saw. When cutting out long curved panels, I have to use a jigsaw. I saw a good idea about making a zero clearance base for the jigsaw. I made one and it works great. It also helps to use a blade with at least 18 TPI (threads per inch).

1 comment:

sincerely said...

Dave!

Great little piece on plywood re: preventing tearout and what makes marine ply worth purchasing.

I'm a kiteboarder and am embarking on making my own board.

Other than the extreme test you put the plywood to, (boiling/freezing) which kind of implys I'll be riding in some pretty wild conditions... Actually no I won't be!... Would cabinet grade plywood be okay for preliminary board builds? Marine ply is about $90 a sheet up in Toronto, while the other is about $30. I doubt I'll experience much freezing weather when the board is wet. Nor boiling...


Thanks,

Doug