Cutting Square holes in perspex and polycarbonate

This is a quick video guide of how to cut accurate holes in perspex and polycarbonate for the purpose of fitting electrical items such as meters, switches and timers etc. it is a fairly long process involving using a jigsaw.

I put masking tape on the plastic to protect it and I take my time marking out the area to be cut using a very fine pen,the masking tape helps a lot with the marking but also helps reduce potential damage to the perspex or polycarbonate.

after I have done the marking I drill holes in four corners using a cone type step drill bit which makes enough space for the jigsaw blade to fit into.

then I proceed with the cut using the jigsaw and like to try and keep inside the line, if you are using a very powerful jigsaw I would suggest that you disable the oscillation feature which means the blade won't be bouncing around so much and therefore you are less likely to break the material.

as I am cutting I'm constantly blowing away the debris from the jigsaw which enables me to see what is actually going on if there is too much debris in the path of The jigsaw you can back up a little bit and carry on.forwatds.

however it yields very good results and ends up with an extremely tight fit.