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Hi - I'm looking into making PC Board ties for an N scale model railroad with hand laid code 40 track. It looks like the only place that used to sell PC strips 0.031" thick no longer makes that product. FastTracks has them but way too expensive for the amount I need. So I'm looking into cutting my own from PC board blanks. Two questions:
1. Anyone know where 0.031" PC board material can be purchased? (all I seem to find is twice that thickness)
2. Do you think this Micromart product (# 84046 Chop-It), using a single edge razor blade, would be durable enough to cut thru 0.031 PC board material that would be ~3/4" wide?
Ebay - search for .031 copper clad - or some variant of that.
Using a chopper for copper is probably not going to to work for ya - other than once or twice. If you have some sort of machine shop near you that has an End Shear, see what they will charge. If ya don't need many, trade for pizza?
PC board is cheap, acquiring a small saw to do this accurately is not. The big cabinet makers saw is very precise, if overkill. Cutting on a scroll saw is not as smooth and precise. One is not likely to need hundreds of such ties so only a few small boards of this stuff will be required. For regular ties there are better products (ie. wood).
I did discover another good use for the PC board, 3D printed engines and rolling stock tend to not remain perfectly flat and one can sandwich PC Board on the inside adding great rigidity and a little extra weight.
Maybe using a laser cutting machine? I'll have to ask a guy I know who I think makes his own ties for use with the Fast Tracks jigs (N scale). He's doing the same thing, re: soldering rail to ties.
He might also be using his own self designed CNC router for cutting his ties, and which he uses (too?) for cutting plywood. Given that he has a PHD in fluid dynamics, I tend to think his machine would be pretty solid, both in design and build. But I haven't seen it in person yet.
I also think THIS laser cutter: the "xtool F1," might fit the bill. Even though it's marketed as a laser engraver I think it'll plow right through plywood on the order of 1/4"-1/2" in just one pass, which might solve your epoxy substrate cutting need pretty easily too. It also cuts/engraves the materials from a slight angle (using mirrors to align the laser), so I think reflection back toward the laser source (from the copper surface itself) should not be an issue. Not clear to me yet how or why this last at would be true or not, but I'm working myself toward understanding it.
