Home Depot now stocks 1/2in pvc sheets

[OhhWatALoser]

Alright I finally bought myself a sheet, here what I know about it so far:
Stuff at my store isn't wood grain, its flat on both sides. it does have little texture to it, kinda like melamine does, not laminate smooth but pretty damn close. I was impressed with how well it held screws, I screwed one piece of pvc into another and was able to pull the screw right through 1 piece, can't even do that with some wood. Cutting it you do start to see what cellular is all about. This was cut with my circular saw:


not terrible, but obviously not smooth

this was cut on my table saw, it was a little better than my free hand circular saw cut, but this is it compared to the factory edge:


Now I think a different saw blade might help a lot, my blades are for wood, I'll have to look into whats a better blade for plastic. I did have some fun trying to smooth out the edges tho. first I tried fire.... because why the hell not. it did smooth it out some, but pvc burns easy so its not the prettiest edge. Then I attempted to make the pvc look like wood..... again why the hell not. I however do not recommend this method.


then I tried pvc glue to fill in the edge, it really didn't soak into the holes the way I hoped, so that was a bust also. So the only logical thing to do was to lit the pvc glue on fire.
now surprising result, ugly edge, but actually smooth as can be lol. I again do not recommend this method.

Now all joking aside, what actually did give me a nice finish was sanding it, it was near factory edge with a little elbow grease.


If anyone is wondering yes it is possible to smooth out some plastics with fire, just it does normally require you to sand it down pretty fine before giving it whats called a flame polish, which takes practice to not burn it, I've restored headlights and a couple acrylic cages this way. pvc however is not a good candidate for this due to it discoloring very quickly.