How to Cut Acrylic Tubing

Fine tooth saw (Used for cutting metal) is your best option. Wrap some painters tape around the area you wish to cut, and rasp any burs off. Another option (What I use for Acrylic panels) is a table saw.

To cut your acrylic tubing clean and straight, the best option might be to use a table saw—but power saws are often quite expensive. A more affordable method for the do-it-yourselfer is to simply use a hacksaw with a fine blade. After making the cuts, file down the edges to clean them up.

A jigsaw is one preferred tool for cutting acrylic sheets. It is a small handheld tool that can cut the sheet with the straight blade by function up and down in fast motion. However, if you intend to cut acrylic into a nonlinear fashion, a jigsaw is the right option for you.

A handsaw, power saw, tube cutter, or pipe cutter will work just fine. Any of these choices will work, regardless of the acrylic tubing’s diameter. If your cutters don’t fit around the tube, then use a saw instead.

To cut a polycarbonate tube, use a plastic blade as metal blades may generate heat and can ruin the tube. Put the sheet on the cutting table and clamp it tightly. Use a circular saw to get the best cut on hard plastic.

With a steady hand and a utility knife, you can cut right through it. Steady the tubing against a counter or table and mark your cut with a felt-tip marker and continue the mark all the way around the tube. Stab the point of the utility knife (carefully) in to start the cut and slowly work your way around.

Rigid pipe can be cut with such PVC pipe and tube cutters as hacksaws, power miter saws and scissor-type cutters, but ratchet-style cutters tend to strike an effective balance of affordability, flexibility and ease of use. With a hacksaw, slowly draw the blade back and forth, making sure that the cut is straight.

Note: Squeeze-style cutters are only capable of cutting PVC pipe with smaller diameters. The Ridgid Plastic and Copper Tubing Cutter (also available on Amazon), for example, will work for plastic pipe up to 4 inches in diameter.

A hand saw is the most common way to cut PVC pipe, but can be a little messy. You can use almost any kind of saw, but a hacksaw is best as it gives you much more flexibility.

Flexible PVC pipe can be cut in a few ways. If you have one, an old-fashioned miter box and back saw works well. A hack saw with medium size teeth, or a common wood saw will also do the job. Home centers also sell or rent tools specially designed for cutting PVC tube.

If you have decent hand strength, you can easily ratchet the cutter until it cuts right through PVC pipe. These cutters are also great for cutting CPVC and PEX. PVC tubing cutters are not recommended for ABS pipe, which is too brittle to be effectively cut by a PVC tubing cutter.

Sawzall/Reciprocating Saw

As long as you have a long enough blade and some skills, you can cut up to 8” PVC pipe with a reciprocating saw.

Cut with carbide-tipped saw blades and bits

Cut PVC trim boards with the same hand and power tools that you use for wood. But use only carbide-tipped saw blades; plain steel ones will dull quickly. In general, the more teeth a blade has, the smoother the cut edges will be. We recommend standard combination saw blades.

Tools needed:

Three-quarter-inch PEX is easy to cut with a pipe cutter, especially one made to take the diameter of PEX tubing. A pipe cutter allows you to cut the tube straight without much effort. It works the same for large and small tubing diameters.

Hand Saw

Using a hand saw is the most common way of cutting a PVC pipe because the tool essentially does all of the work for you. Like the plastic pipe cutter, hand saws are relatively inexpensive to buy. You can use nearly any kind of saw, but a hacksaw is best, as it affords much more flexibility.