[sdiy] Cutting Circuit boards

[Tony Clark]

On Wed, Aug 14, 2013 at 2:50 AM, Andre Majorel <aym-htnys at teaser.fr> wrote:
> Interesting, thanks. I have access to a shear but have been
> afraid to dull the blades with the fibre glass in the FR4. I
> don't fancy having to sharpen those 60 cm monsters, seeing how
> much trouble I have with simple kitchen knives. <g>

If it's an actual sheet metal shear, then you don't need to be afraid
of dulling it.  I've cut thousands of boards on one with no issues
(same shear - an old Cincinnati 6' shear - was also used to cut
hundreds of thousands of pieces of tool steel with minimal dulling
over the years.

If you don't want to go the shear route, then you could do a perf line
between your boards (a line of 0.020" or smaller holes spaced 0.040"
apart), then you can use a band saw to zip through the holes and end
up with a near flat edge.  I use this trick to also get complex shapes
on proto boards which don't allow for large holes or cutouts.

Cheers,

Tony

-- 

Tony Clark
Great Lakes Modular
www.greatlakesmodular.com
Design, Engineering, and Manufacturing Services