Bouyed by the success of the giant pear print, I began cutting the 24″ x 30″ pumpkin plate. Before starting I headed out to Lowes to pick up some safety gear, including an N95 dust respirator and face mask. I already had good ear protection.
As with the pear plate, my pattern is made up of six pieces of 11″ x 17″ paper.
Tracing over the pattern which lies on top of a sheet of Richeson graphite paper.
I’m guessing that the cutting is about halfway through. It is going well as I apply learnings from the pear print. First is to use hearing protection, a face mask, and respirator. Second is to leave the edges of the plate intact until all of the fine cutting is done. This reduces the chance of breaking the plate while cutting. Third is that the jigsaw can actually be used like a router or grinder, by gently sweeping the blade side to side. This works better than the end mill in the rotary tool because the end mill sometimes catches on the plastic and jerks past the cut line. The fourth learning is that ball mills and sand paper grinding wheels work better for FPVC than end mills.