I managed a trip to Squires last month (the wife needed something from Bognor so I took the opportunity!) and amongst a pile of bits and bobs I got a sheet of copper-clad board for about £1.50, thinking I could cut it into strips. However it proved resistant to all known knife blades - this is tough stuff! Then it struck me - rather overkill but perhaps the power jigsaw could be used? But how to cut a small, brittle board with something as large and crude as a jigsaw?
The photo shows how. The copper-clad was screwed face-down to a piece of board (more of that PVC plastic I got for free in this case), which could be held on the bench, and support the board during cutting. In the end I put the screws into the bench too! I managed to cut a dozen strips - not very straight or even, and a bit rough, but fine for my needs - plus the last bit can be cut into larger slabs for board and cassette ends. Sledgehammer and nut? Probably! But it worked.
5 comments:
Remind me not to give you any monkey nuts for Christmas then!
Yeah - it's amazing what we can end up doing - but, as you say, since you'll not see them, what does it matter?
A very great deal of what we create is to do with the 'eye of the beholder' - it's rather like creating an illusion with scenery on a stage in a theatre sometimes.
Where's the bluetac?
Can't you just buy it cut up by someone else.
We used to cut PCB on old press break machine - I suppose there's no engineering companies left in the UK which might have such a thing.
Still, I can't help thinking that's not the way to do it. A small table saw is what's needed - like this one
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPzAMOYYyKM&feature=related
Yes you can buy it ready cut but as I said only in quantities far more than I need, and by mail order which adds cost! I certainly didn't need enough to warrant buying a table saw even if it was ideal.
This is definitely a crude method but given I don't care what the result looked like, it has worked for me.
Can you not still get pre-cut EM sleepers by the 1000 in a bag from SMP or Marcway? For 009 I just cut in half as per the prototype.
Chris, you can but I thought you'd have got it by now - they cost money! I don't need 1000, I don't even need 100 ... and it's not 009! So they would be very poor value.
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