Make: Projects – Hinge-Technique Acrylic Box Construction Using a Router

Craft & Design
Make: Projects – Hinge-Technique Acrylic Box Construction Using a Router

Recently, I posted about German firm Serrox Technischer Handel’s video showing an interesting alternative to the basic slab-joint method for building an acrylic box. Their technique, which involves cutting 90-degree V-grooves almost all the way through the plastic, has much to recommend it over the slab-joint method, with the exception that they use a very expensive custom V-shaped sawblade to cut the grooves. I wondered, at the time, whether it might not work just or almost as well with a cheap 90-degree V-groove router bit, and with some encouragement from Angus Hines, I decided to try it, myself.

The short version? It works. Here’s how I did it.

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10 thoughts on “Make: Projects – Hinge-Technique Acrylic Box Construction Using a Router

  1. Bradley Gawthrop says:

    There is some debate about this, but nobody who has ever seen a rotary tool like a router grab a glove and pull it, hand and all, into the cutting edge of a tool (which it can) ever uses gloves with rotating shaft power tools again. Something to consider…

    1. Sean Michael Ragan says:

      Yeah, I’ve heard that argument.  Especially with bench grinders.  Unlike a grindstone or a wire wheel, however, that sharp carbide router point it not going to grab:  It’s going to cut.  I’d rather it cut the glove before it cuts my hand.

  2. Halfvast Conspirator says:

    I was going to make the same exact comment about the glove and the router table.  Having been bit by the table saw (once, I learn fast) I realize skin is lot easier to cut than tough leather or whatever that stuff your gloves are made of.  The glove is much more likely to be grabbed and pulled (and wrapped around rotating bits) than your finger or other part of your appendage, and other things are going to get bit.  Either way, it won’t end well, but I would seriously consider losing the gloves.

    1. Halfvast Conspirator says:

      Oh, and I forgot to say, “I like your writeup!”

    2. Halfvast Conspirator says:

      Oh, and I forgot to say, “I like your writeup!”

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I am descended from 5,000 generations of tool-using primates. Also, I went to college and stuff. I am a long-time contributor to MAKE magazine and makezine.com. My work has also appeared in ReadyMade, c't – Magazin für Computertechnik, and The Wall Street Journal.

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