Cutting out body shells
 

How do you cut out the shell, hobby knife & sand paper, dremmel ?

Is there a good guide on the web somewhere, or is jimmy working on one? 8)

Personaly I use a sharp hobby knife (like a stanley but smaller) and then a dremmel for awkward bits.

i use a scalpel and dremel sanding drum for the complex bits (like the front of the zx5 shell)

If you follow the line of the shell, very carefully with a sharp scalpel, you can then 'break' it to the drawn line by bending the lexan to that line. The lexan will simply snap off at the scored line. For more complex shapes, carefully bend the lexan in smaller areas and do a bit at a time.

Lexan should NEVER be cut with scissors. If you can 'cut' out the shell using the method described, it will leave a beautiful clean line that will not crack or tear.

aye very true, i find it hard to control the knife in really complex aread though and thats where the dremel really comes into its own, makes nice curves so you dont end up with any sharp corners which can lead to tears..

scissors are the worst for cutting shells

I cut all the straight -ish lines with a scalpel, and cut the rest with curved lexan scissors. Like Andy mentioned, If you run the scalpel down, bend (away from the cut side) and it just snaps off along your scored line.

If you DO use scissors, then ensure you cut on the waste side of the line and finish with a sanding drum on a dremmel or sandpaper so as not to leave any nicks (no, not Mr Oliver) in the cut, that nick will grow into a split.

Ye you dont want any NICKS :lol: :lol: thats for sure

Thanks folks, craft knife and dremmel with sanding things, I dont know but it seemed like hard work :!: transparent shell with slightly embossed line to follow, makes you wonder why they aint ready cut out, wish I had left a longer edge on the bottom all round, body seems a bit tight.

its better for the body to be a bit tight then at least whilst running outside you have less chance of any water/dirt getting inside to those precious and expensive electrics