PETG is great stuff. It's clear, making it great for displays, enclosure windows, and artwork. It's far stronger and more flexible than acrylic, but can be cut and engraved on a laser cutter, unlike polycarbonate. If you've recently received a clear engraved business card from Big Blue Saw recently, it was made from 0.02 inch thick PETG.

We have added 0.25, 0.125, 0.09, and 0.02 inch thicknesses of PETG to our online quoting system to complement the 0.063 inch thickness we already offer. As always, if you don't see a material or thickness in the online quoting system, just contact us and we can probably get it for you.

Upload your design or create a new design to try with PETG.

I recently started making samples of the materials that Big Blue Saw offers. Since I knew that I would be showing these to customers, and possibly giving them away, I made the samples in the form of business cards (some of you have received these with your orders).

I ended up with so many samples that I had to figure out some way of organizing them all. A clear acrylic box would be just the thing: easy to make, attractive, and it lets you see all of its contents without opening it. With the techniques in this article, you're not limited to making boxes to hold business cards. You can use this general design to make custom electronics enclosures, robot frames, and more.

I began by creating a design in the Big Blue Saw designer. The base of the box would consist of 5 laser cut pieces 0.118 inches (3 mm) thick that would slot together and be held in place with nuts and bolts. The top would slot onto the base, and be removable for easy access.

I then cut the 6 parts (5 for the base, 1 for the top) on the laser cutting machine. Our acrylic comes with a protective paper layer attached, as shown here.

I peeled the protective layer off, and was left with nice clear plastic parts.

I assembled the pieces and used #6 nuts and screws to fasten everything together. I think you'll agree that the brass hardware gives the box a polished appearance.

Here is one box full of samples. It's a little hard to see in this photo, but the brass nuts make little dividers between the cards.

I wasn't done yet, though. I decided to make another box, this time using several different materials. This box was made from clear acrylic, black acrylic, blue and white engraveable acrylic, and the (on the back face, not really visible) brushed nickel engraveable acrylic.

If you want to make your variation on this design, download the design file. One of these custom acrylic boxes currently costs $22.20 or $11.88 each if you order 10.

As we mentioned, the original Free Part Day was our most successful promotion ever. We would like to make the next Free Part Day bigger and better then ever before. But to do that, we need your help. How can you help? It's very simple, really, you just need to like us.

Well, of course you already like us. But we need you to declare your "like" for us on Facebook. This will help spread the word about Big Blue Saw and Free Part Day 2. When we get to 3,000 likes, we'll announce the date of Free Part Day and let you know how you can participate.

But we don't want to stop there. When we reach the 6,000, 12,000, and 25,000 level, we'll add a new stock material for Free Part Day. What's more, YOU will get to vote on which material you'd like us to give away.

So tell your friends, enemies, co-workers, neighbors, and family to "like" us on Facebook. Just use the "Like" button below, or see the Big Blue Saw page on Facebook.

We have implemented a couple new ways to keep up with the goings on at Big Blue Saw.

• You can "like" us on Big Blue Saw's page on Facebook.
• Or "follow" us on Twitter .

And, of course there's still our blog on the Big Blue Saw website, which includes links to RSS and ATOM feeds.

We know you loved it because it was our most successful promotion ever. You'll be happy to hear that we're gearing up for another Free Part Day. To ensure that next Free Part Day will be more successful than the first, we will need YOUR help to spread the word. Keep watching our mailing list and the blog for more info about how you can bring Free Part Day back.

Laser and Waterjet Cutting SALE

May 2nd through May 5th, 2010

Please visit Big Blue Saw from Sunday, May 2nd through Wednesday, May 5th for our next wonderful sale. We will be offering discounts on parts made from 0.236 inch (6 mm) thick clear acrylic plastic and 0.25 inch thick 6061 alloy aluminum. When you order parts made from either of these materials online, we will reduce the setup and minimum material costs up to an incredible 87% off. For example, our sample "butterfly" in 0.236 inch clear acrylic will be marked down from $15.30 to $10.60 (30% off!) and the sample butterfly in 0.25 inch 6061 alloy aluminum will be marked down from $81.10 to $10.20 when made from 6061 aluminum (87% off!).

Good news for our customers outside the USA, as well as anyone who must deal with metric system measurements. The online quoting system will now display measurements in millimeters alongside the measurements shown in inches. Just click the "Show/Hide Metric Values" link to toggle the display of millimeters in the material thicknesses and part sizes.

Waterjet and Laser Cutting Sale Through April 10

Big Blue Saw is having a sale on waterjet and laser cutting, now through April 10, 2010. You can save when you place an online order for any of the following materials:

• Aluminum 6061 alloy (0.08")
• Clear acrylic plastic (0.118")
• Polyester twill (all colors)
• Poplar wood