TAP Plastics/Acme Plastics experience?

[Michael R]

Another of my styrene-related questions…

I need some squares and rectangles cut from 1/8” thick styrene and I’m tiring of doing it myself. Pain in the ass. These would be for assembling some boxes.

Two options I’m looking at for custom cuts are Acme and Tap. I’m leaning toward Tap because their standard tolerance is +/- 1/16” vs 1/8” for Acme (although they indicate it is usually less). To be honest I was a little surprised there is that much slop. Even 1/16” kind of sucks in my opinion. But I can deal with it for this particular application. These box structures don’t need to be perfect so high precision isn’t required.

Any experience with either of these companies?

Thanks

[Bob Salomon]

Not sure how many outlets they have but if you mean Acme Plastic in New Jersey we used them a lot and they were excellent.

[Michael R]

Hi Bob, it's this outfit I looked at...
https://www.acmeplastics.com/nj-corp...ibution-center

Not sure how many outlets they have but if you mean Acme Plastic in New Jersey we used them a lot and they were excellent.

[Bob Salomon]

Hi Bob, it's this outfit I looked at...
https://www.acmeplastics.com/nj-corp...ibution-center

Great people and service.

[Michael R]

Great people and service.

That's great news. Thanks for your feedback on this.

[Drew Wiley]

I use Tap for casual amounts of various plastic because they're convenient and nearby. If I need precision cuts, I do that myself using oversized stock. But I'm well equipped to efficiently do that. It is really difficult for a retail plastics shop to do precise work at a reasonable cost. I also know that, at least in this region where Tap began, they have a centralized fabrication division which can quote more involved tasks.

[Graham Patterson]

I probably use the same TAP retail store as Drew. 1/16" is close enough for anything I have needed, and I have always got what I requested. I cannot speak for finer tolerances and consistency - my stuff has been largely single custom parts. The store staff are generally very helpful, but dealing in person makes things a little easier.

[Michael R]

Thanks this is all good info. Looks like both places are good.

Drew, just curious how you do precision cuts? What sort of machinery do you use for things like styrene or ABS? I don't have any equipment so up until now I've done everything by hand, which isn't much fun when it comes to anything more than around 0.5mm in thickness. For example if I need a straight cut through 1/8" styrene I have to use a plastic scoring knife, and then spend a lot of time sanding, which is difficult to do by hand if you want true straight edges with flat/perpendicular faces for bonding. It's also damn tiring!

Both Acme and TAP seem to offer higher precision/tighter tolerances if required, which is good to know, though probably expensive.

[Tin Can]

New Hobby Cutters

https://www.brother-usa.com/home/cut...sort=relevancy

[Havoc]

Wouldn't you be better of by looking at a company providing laser cutting? Tolerance is lower than what you quote. The one I used previously (not for plastic) does styrene, PP, PE and plexi. They quote tolerances around 0.5mm but the cut has a 7.5° angle.

I don't have an address in the US but I'm sure any search machine will find them for you.