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26th February 2020, 03:17 AM #1New Members
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Square cutout in middle of plywood
Hi All newbie here,
I have little experience with woodworking , I usually work with electronics but have always wanted to do woodwork, I am making a air drying box for cheese for a friend of mine, using free plywood sheets from work, what tool is best to cut a square in the middle of plywood, i have cut the plywood to shape using a circular saw ,i tried using a friends ozito pro plungesaw , but found it awkward to use with the triggers might just be practice.Does anyone have any advice on what to use, i was thinking either a track saw (but not sure if i can use it one small pieces of plywood around a4 in size) or a better plunge saw, or maybe a sliding mitre saw,
Thanks for any advice
Jason
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26th February 2020, 01:32 PM #2
Depending on how neat the square hole needs to be you could use a jigsaw for an OK result or a router with with straight edges and template guide or flush trim bit.
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26th February 2020, 01:48 PM #3GOLD MEMBER
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How thick is the plywood? I can see using my RotoZip against a simple straight-edge.
I have a Dremel SawMax but I'd need to fool with the corners of the cut with a flush-cutting hand saw.
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26th February 2020, 02:30 PM #4GOLD MEMBER
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How many times do you need to repeat this?
A4 shize sheets pretty much eliminates any reasonable track/plunge/mitre saw you have. You really need to think smaller scale - which would mean things like mentioned before a jigsaw or perhaps even a scrollsaw, or hand tools. For a one off I'd do it with a jigsaw to get roughly done and trim up with a router on a straight edge and chisel out the round corners if needed.
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26th February 2020, 03:26 PM #5
what size piece of ply are you starting with?
hat size is the piece you need to cut out?
I presume the cutout piece needs to be square with square sharp internal cornersI would love to grow my own food, but I can not find bacon seeds
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26th February 2020, 10:16 PM #6
Not much help now if you already have the material cut down to the final size, but generally it would be better and easier to mark out the panel and the hole you wish to cut while the panel is part of the sheet, then cut the hole using whatever method you end up choosing, then cut the panel out of the sheet. By having a lot more material available, it is easier to use guides, clamps, etc because there is plenty of material available for them to fix to, and it's easier to avoid clamps being close to the line and interfering with the passage of the tool.
If your finished panel is approx A4 size, I doubt that there would be a lot of scope to cut the hole with any form of circular saw, plunge saw, track saw, or SCMS. That leaves the jigsaw, router, oscillating blade on a multitool, or scroll saw as the last remaining options to make the cut. With a scroll saw, you can't use anything but a line as a guide, so that would be the contradiction to my first suggestion, and you would also probably need to be working at panel size (or slightly larger) rather than half or quarter sheet size to be able to manipulate the material through the saw.The other options I have listed could all benefit from a guide or template for a finished cut, while keeping the clamping etc clear of the tool.I used to be an engineer, I'm not an engineer any more, but on the really good days I can remember when I was.
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27th February 2020, 10:55 AM #7
And of course if you've got very few tools, you can
- chain drill just inside of the finished hole size,
- then chop out with a chisel (bit of a hassle with plywood but with some swearing it works - also keeping the chisel very sharp is pretty well essential),
- then finish off with a wood rasp and
- tidy up with a file and sandpaper
Yes, I've had to do it, that's in the southwest Pacific. Pretty basic place, only an odd selection of basic hand tools available. But, it works ok.
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28th February 2020, 11:35 PM #8Senior Member
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29th February 2020, 06:46 AM #9
Fein (or “Renovator”) oscillating multitools only excel in one application; making square holes. Tools at the low end of the quality spectrum are very cheap these days while still adequately performing.
The best way to cut square holes using this tool is to use a straight edged plunging blade to define the corners and then a curved saw blade to join them up. You can do it freehand but better and cleaner cuts are best done by clamping straight edges around the hole to guide the blade. Take your time to get the first one spot on, then you can use it as the template to cut all the others.Nothing succeeds like a budgie without a beak.
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