Thread: Turning time for acrylic blank

hello there
Not being all that flash at turning pens and definately in the learning stages I feel it is easier to timber pens although I find it alot easier to finish an acrylic pen than I do a timber pen because I always use the CA finish because I find it wears alot better. I use the same tools as I do for timber pens but make sur the tools are sharp.

Cheers Ian

Also takes me a lot longer to turn an acrylic ,probably why I favour the single tube types .and do 2 at a time . having had bits of acrylic fly off at times and dig ins and chatter etc, I just take it easy on all acrylics these days . I do sand as much off the corners as possible before turning to lessen the amount of material to remove ,each has their way, I have tried a small 1/2 " gauge ,but tend to use a skew more often ,and sometimes finish with a curved flat scraper ,with that tool it almost polishes the acrylic before sanding .Probably need as much care with most burls as well . Cheers ~ John

I now do the bulk of the acrylic turning on my metal lathe.

I glue up the blanks, then use the auto-feed on the metal lathe to turn them down to just over the max diameter I want, then I take them to the wood lathe and do the final sahping with a Sorby 1/2" Spindlemaster. This has become my "goto" tool, also use it for a lot of the wooden pen blanks (ie the Birdseye Huon Pine I did the other day).

I have also started to cast some of my acrylics in the round, in conduit etc, to avoid the corners.

Since doing the "rough" turning on the metal lathe I haven't had one chip-out.

Overall, acrylics are faster for me, as there aren't the 12-20 coats of CA to apply, just dry sand 320-800, then wet sand 600-2000, polish and buff on the mop.

Originally Posted by gawdelpus

Also takes me a lot longer to turn an acrylic ,probably why I favour the single tube types .and do 2 at a time . having had bits of acrylic fly off at times and dig ins and chatter etc, I just take it easy on all acrylics these days . I do sand as much off the corners as possible before turning to lessen the amount of material to remove ,each has their way, I have tried a small 1/2 " gauge ,but tend to use a skew more often ,and sometimes finish with a curved flat scraper ,with that tool it almost polishes the acrylic before sanding .Probably need as much care with most burls as well . Cheers ~ John

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I admire your dedication in achieving your goals hehe! There is an easier way though

thats cheating lol what about us poor fellas slugging away trying to get the job done.

Cheers Ian

When I am at home I do more resin pens then wood and find I do them faster. I do use the same tools.
David

acrylics i find pretty quick and fairly easy, i haven't done a great deal of them but the ones i have done i found the best way was just with a rounded nose scraper, then wet sand them out

resins are a different story some resins are very brittle and can only be turned with a skew, the ones i have found to be the most brittle are the ones i have made with the "Quality Casting Resin", any i have made from "Clear Casting Resin" seem to be softer and the rounded nose scraper does a fantastic job on them as well

with acrylic and resins i wet sand, 280, 320, 400 and then the top 5 or 6 micro mesh, and hit them on the buffing wheel with Sutton Tools White Buffing compound

MIK

I find the acrylic and resin blanks turn fairly quickly .. a matter of a couple of minutes
from start to finish. I most often start with a roughing gouge, but since I keep it very sharp,
I tend to go all the way with it. It's not unusual to turn the entire pen with a roughing
gouge if it is sharp, as it has different cutting edges on it depending on how you hold the
tool. About the only time I put down the gouge is if it won't fit between the blank and
the live or dead centers. Mostly, I forget to change to another tool, since it is going so
well already. The ends can work just like a skew if you sharpen well, and you don't need
to re-adjust your grip or your thinking as you would when you pick up another tool.

Some interesting points of view, thanks guys. I too use the roughing gouge and find it the easiest to use on the acrylic blanks. I finish by wet sanding to 2000grit and then going through the Micro-mesh to the finest grit. I then polish it with Brasso and finally apply a car polish for a really nice shine. Looks great but the turning is taking much too long for my liking..Might have to change the way I approach that side of things.

My feeling is that plastics are considerably faster to turn than timber.

Certainly the finishing is faster, due to no finish needing to be applied & dried.

I use a skew - firstly as a skew, then on it's side as a scraper for sneaking down to the size required.

Cheers,
Andrew

I do mostly my own cast resins. The block is harder than timber, so there's either more slow work, or force required to bring it down to size. My blanks are fairly large too, as I make one-size-fits-all, so for smaller pens it takes a while to remove the waste.

I use the same roughing gouge for the whole process on both wood and resin, but once turned to shape, it takes me about 5 - 10 mins using just MM to get to the final Brasso polish. Doing a timber finish with the redo's and other problems takes me 30 mins - 3 hours

I do get a little chatter on the resins removing the waste, as I try to rush it too much some times, but haven't broken one for 6 months I reckon. The biggest bug-bear is that I have to give the gouge a quick sharpen every second blank. Could be my sharpening technique, but there's a noticeable difference in the speed and ease of turning just after I sharpen.

Attached is a rushed, horribly taken (flash, urgh) picture of one I've just come back in with, done using this technique.

Russell.

Originally Posted by BoomerangInfo

The biggest bug-bear is that I have to give the gouge a quick sharpen every second blank. Could be my sharpening technique, but there's a noticeable difference in the speed and ease of turning just after I sharpen.

Russell.

yeah i've found the same, lots of sharpening needed when it comes to acrylics or resins.

nice work Russell

I have only turned 2 acrylic pens and I found them to be slower mainly because I had to keep clearing away the ribbons/shavings I find they tend to wrap around the blanks and get in the way