I’m back at work at the 24″ x 30″ plate for the three pears. Today I transferred the design to a sheet of FPVC and started cutting, first with the jig saw, and then with the Proxxon rotary tool. The FPVC cuts like butter and the edges come out clean, but the material is a bit brittle, so I am being careful with the finer cuts around the stems. The Proxxon kicks up a ton of plastic dust that gets on everything, but it doesn’t seem to be small enough to require a respirator. Once I finish cutting, I will probably use a file or an emory board to clean up the edges an then I will glue the pieces to another sheet of FPVC to complete the plate. I can’t wait to see how it prints!

I’ve used Richeson graphite transfer paper to copy the pattern to the FPVC. I thought I would have to reenforce the lines with a Sharpie, but it turns out the FPVC takes the graphite very well.

I roughed in the larger shapes with the jigsaw using a 20 TPI blade. Then I switched to the Proxxon rotary tool with a milling bit for precision edgework.

The Proxxon rotary tool makes a lot of plastic dust.