Once you cut a groove into it, the acrylic becomes pretty easy to snap. The directions say use your thumbs, but it was easier on my hands to bite off chunks with my Vise-grips.
Armed with my new dollar store tape measure, I decided to tackle a project that had been marinating for a long time. A few years ago during a wind storm, the door that leads from the garage to the back yard slammed shut and the glass broke. I cleaned up the broken glass pretty much immediately- I had little kids crawling around, after all (ooh, the fact that I say they were crawling around makes it seem like this window has been broken for more than a “few” years…) So, cleaned up the glass, scraped out the putty, bought a sheet of acrylic to replace the glass, and a handy dandy little tool for cutting the acrylic and then…waited. Procrastinated. Can’t explain why- once the glass was cleaned up it didn’t seem urgent anymore, and I thought it would take a long time.
Well, it didn’t. Not really.
We had a beautiful sunny afternoon when I didn’t really have anything else to do, so I got out the tape measure and measured. Once.
You can probably see where this is going.
I laid out the acrylic, measured out my lines, and clamped a metal straight-edge down. The special acrylic cutting tool calls for cutting along the line until the groove is 1/16th on an inch deep. The sound drove the neighbor’s dog crazy- this high pitched squeal that had to be repeated many many times. There might be an easier way to cut plastic- I honestly didn’t do much research about it.
Once I got it scored and snapped, I took it over the the window opening, and discovered it was 1/2 inch too big.
It was a nice sunny day, though. DH and the kids were on a bike ride, and I had no where to be, really, other than enjoying the sunshine in my backyard, so, I measured again, marked it clamped it and cut it. This time it was just right. I popped it into the frame, popped it out, put in some caulk and nailed the trim back on.
Look, now the shiny window reflects the mess in the yard... I'll get right on that.
One project down…
Strawberry Fields for Breakfast 
Mar 23, 2012 @ 05:56:26
Whew! At least it was a half-inch too BIG. Well done!
Mar 23, 2012 @ 22:40:36
Nice!! I am very impressed that you got it too BIG and not to small the first time out!! I had a little giggle, tho, over the air-craft carrier in your back yard. We have that toy. The boys use it as a ladder to stand upon and look out the window! Good to know we are not the only folks using that toy for something other than what it was intended.
Mar 24, 2012 @ 06:23:17
Until this second, I hadn’t even considered the possibility of cutting it too small. I guess I would have broken out the duct tape:) At some point, we will get rid of the aircraft carrier- I can’t face putting it in the dump, and I know Goodwill won’t take it.