Can woven fiberglass cloth be cut into non-square shapes with a steel rule die?
Fiberglass cloth can be easily cut into shapes with a steel rule die as well as many other types of tooling. In order to make the cut well, with no hanging threads, a sacrificial belt system or an operator with great experience, or both, will have to be involved. The problem comes after the cut in the unraveling of the edges that have been freed during the cut. Like in a slapstick cartoon, a single thread can lead to the entire part falling apart, leaving you exposed to all sorts of problems. If you need just a basic, jagged cut, they can work well. If you need to retain the shape perfectly to pass on to the next operation (usually some type of gluing), you need to make a change to the material. Add material to the fiberglass to give all the fibers a pre-bond. Either a permeable laminate or a specialty additive work well to give the parts some bond before you make the cut. Your fiberglass supplier should be able to do this for you. Besides adding something to the material to keep it to
