by MeFlick » October 29th, 2019, 8:53 am
First welcome - second. It is not just the "thickness" of a material that determines whether or not it can be cut on a drag blade cutter like the Silver Bullet machines. Besides how "thick" it is, you have to take the "density" of the material into consideration. This is why something like balsa wood can generally be cut, it is not very dense or fiberous. As a person who has worked with drag blade cutters as well as woodworking, I would suggest that MDF is not a material that you can cut with your Silver Bullet as it would be too dense. Further, there are safety issues and concerns when working with MDF due to the toxicity of the medium from the materials used to create MDF. If you are not familiar with how MDF is created and the safety concerns with it, a quick google search will provide that information for you in detail. It is not a material that I would consider using with a drag blade cutter even if I thought it could be cut. Unfortunately, some projects we envision do not give themselves over to being done with a drag blade cutter when the material needed to do it correctly is one that won't work with that cutter.
That said, there are ways to attempt what you want. Some people use "chipboard" which is different from cardboard. But again, with chipboard, you have to find one that is not to dense to cut. Some people cut "layers" of cardboard or chipboard and layer them together to create the sturdiness needed for a project like this. Others use the SB to cut "paper patterns" that they use to cut out the parts from a thicker medium with different tools.
Go Vols!