I am trying to cut a bunch of plastic bullets from a costume bandolier in half to make into something for a different costume. But I’m not sure what we have that will do this most efficiently.
I need to cut maybe 15-20 lengthwise.
Suggestions? Hot knife? something else?
For size, these look like 7.62X39 replicas.
My first guess would be a hot wire (not a knife) Depending on the type of plastic, maybe the laser cutters.
Plastics SIG has a bandsaw. I’d make a sliding holding fixture out a wood .
@keoliver what do you think?
Yeah, I’d say they are maybe 2.5 inches long and only a half inch wide maybe? I can double check when i make it to my car.
I was thinking hot wire too (meant that when I typed knife in the OP), supposedly we have one in creative arts? but I’ve never seen it and if anyone knows whether that is true and where it’s stored that would be great.
Does the plastics bandsaw require a separate sign off to the woodshop ones?
Granted, it occurs to me that I wore sandals today so I can’t even go into the woodshop to make a slide/jig thing. derp facepalm
The lady who is the newish vector sig lead (whose name escapes me) was showing one last night at the electronics committee meeting. Damifiknow her name, though. @artg_dms might
I was also going to suggest making a slide to put them thru a band saw.
I have some scrap plywood you could use if you wanted to try it. Just lmk where to leave it for you 
@AmeliaG is who you want; chair of Vector.
No. The pre-req for the saws and routers in Plastics is the corresponding woodshop basics one.
A holding jig and the plastics sig bandsaw is the way to go I would say. Those are likely blow molded styrene and wold not laser well at all. The plastics bandsaw follows the wood shop bandsaw in terms of training . If you are trained in the woodshop you are good to go on the equivalent tool. However, the new plastics shop bandsaw needs a new tire and is. It currently in service . Should Be up soon . We could also do those on a Sherline mill with a slitting saw but fixturing would be tricky .
Honestly if this were my project I would probably do a half height silicone mold of one and cast them in resin . You would get a better and more stable part that would be easier to mount .
Is this supposed to say ‘isn’t currently in service’? I’m looking to cut these tonight while I’m at the space, so sounds like that’s not an option. I have to get them finished by saturday, otherwise I might do the mold and resin route. I’ve thought about using something else entirely but I already have the bullets. I’m making wrist things for my Black Widow costume
I don’t think that the band saw is fixed . I will be up there tonight for the board meeting. And can check on it . Maybe I can help you figure out a work-around
Don’t know if you are a 3D printing type but there are stl models of black widow wrist stingers on thingiverse…
Hah the last time I tried to do 3d printing it failed miserably on multiple attempts even with help from people 
but might be worth trying to figure out how to use them again if I have time 
There’s a theory that the CA hot-wire moved to Plastics. No idea where it might be located, though.
@mreynolds – did y’all see a hot-wire when you were doing the CA deep clean?
I will check plastics for it tonight .
if something shouldn’t be lasered, then it shouldn’t be cut with a hot wire.
The hotwire will create just as much toxic smoke, and it isn’t vented as well.
Perhaps the scroll saw and a jig?
What about just 3D-printing some halves as replacements? The design looks pretty simple. The ogee curve for the point is the only real modeling challenge.
I spent hours trying to print a widow bite version from thingiverse last night. Between poor bed adhesion ruining attempts at 5% and 95% and the power going out twice in the middle of prints…I think I’m putting 3d fab in time out for me for a long while. 
. I think I’m just gonna deal with the bulk and try to drill two holes in each
The safest and cleanest way to do this is to make the jig shown below, slide the bullet into the hole, and use the slit as a guide for a handheld hacksaw (you do not need a bandsaw for this.)
The jig is simply two cylinder sizes, one for the nose and one for the back of the bullet with a slit to guide the blade. You can 3d print the jig (the easiest method); or you can make it out of wood. To make it out of wood you can simply use two drill sizes for the hole, the hard part will be cutting the slit accurately.
What might actually be easier, is to cut the slit first, and then cut the holes using the drill press. The end of the slit is where the center point for the holes should be.
