The big box hardware stores in my area (Lowes, Homedepot) all sell a few types of clear sheet plastic made by Plaskolite: Lexan(polycarbonate) and 2 types of extruded acrylic (Duraplex and Optix).
The Lowes nearest me has been low on acrylic so I was just using some 8x10" pieces of Duraplex to make my mask ear savers. Wanted to scale up, so drove across town to another Lowes that had more acrylic in stock. They didn’t have any Duraplex but they had plenty of Optix. Optix seems a bit more flexible than Duraplex and it was also cheaper, so I bought some.
Cut a set of 45 ear savers and it went fine, just needed a little more power than the Duraplex. Started another set of 45 and then started in to remove the mfg masking from the first set. With the Duraplex that process had gone very quickly using some high tack gorilla duct tape. But with the Optix it didn’t work. The mfg masking on the Optix is hard to remove. It doesn’t help that the masking appears to have a bit of melt fusion on the cut edges so I have to take a pair of sharp tweezer to raise an edge. Takes me about 4 time longer to remove the Optix masking compared to the Duraplex masking.
If you are doing just a few pieces it’s not that big of a deal, but for hundreds of small pieces it’s a pain in the ass.
Switched to removing the mfg masking before hand and applying my own normal masking (vinyl lettering transfer tape).
