Friday, August 20, 2010

Cutting Plexiglass For My Computer Table

I don't know exactly how you are supposed to do this, but I used some techniques I used when I cut stained glass to score and break the plastic sheet.

First I put a new blade in my utility knife and got out my metal square to use as a guide. I put a piece of thin wood under the plastic where I would be scoring.

I made my measurements and markings and drew a line where I wanted to break the plastic.


Then I made several scores on the line with the knife carefully holding my fingers out of the way in case the knife slipped and jumped over the metal guide and sliced my fingers.



When I was scoring glass, I would make several light passes with the knife to make a deep score instead of one heavy one so there was less chance of me losing control and doing myself damage or going off the line.




After I had the line scored, I aligned the plastic sheet so the scored line was just over the edge of the table. Then I leaned one arm down on the plastic on the table to hold it secure and I pushed down with my other hand on the piece hanging out until it broke along the line.

I guess I was lucky it broke cleanly. When cutting glass you tap along the scored line to make small fractures so when you break the glass it breaks along the line.







Doesn't that look nice and neat with the plastic under the keyboard and monitor.






Yikes! This is the stuff I moved that was behind the monitor and along the side counter. I'm going to empty the drawers and sort through all this stuff and hopefully get rid of most of it.





I painted most of another wall today. The upper reaches of the wall will have to wait until Sunday or Monday when I can get some help holding the ladder.

Peek at the Past
(August 20, 2009)
I wonder if it would have stopped again this year
if I left it hooked up?

[5 eggs today]

~:>
Smiles

4 comments:

Vicki Lane said...

The de-clutter bug seems to have struck several of us. I took a box of books to the library book sales yesterday and my husband and I have been clearing out the basement of our rental house -- 8 pickup truck loads to the dump!

Your desk looks great!

Betsy Banks Adams said...

Hi California Gal, You are so brave to be willing to cut flexiglass yourself... I wouldn't ever even attempt it... Of course, I'm not creative and you ARE. Congrats. Your computer table looks great. I love the way you have it all organized in the corner. Neat!!!!

Love reading about the automatic chicken waterer. I have never heard of that... It's neat though --and the chickens will never get thirsty again.

Have a great weekend.
Hugs,
Betsy

Jim said...

Yes, 'Fall' is approaching and we humans want to get things ready before winter kicks in....everything in it's place.....almost.

Inger said...

You work so hard! I have to start going through my stuff again. I did go through my nightstand, but oh there is so much more to do. Your computer area looks great!--Inger