Looking for advice turning acrylic pen blanks. I'm making a dart set for a Christmas present. Having trouble with the blanks splitting or big chunks coming out of them. I've used every tool on my rack and the only one I can get any decent results with is a carbide pen turning tool with the radius square blade in it. I've tried a 3/8 spindle gouge, 1/2 skew, sorby spindlemaster, 1/2 round nose scraper, and a round carbide cutter. Tried varying rpm also. Thanks.
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Turning Acrylic
- Thread starter Vincent Vogel
- Start date
This may be obvious, but the standard recommendation is usually to make sure your tools are very sharp, and use a light touch. I personally wouldn't use a scraper here, but that may be just me. I have also found that acrylic pen blanks are not all created equal. Some seem to cut like butter, and others just seem like they are waiting for a chance to break apart.
I use a super sharp skew turning as fast as my lathe will go when turning small acrylic and resin blanks.
Where are you getting your blanks? The best suppliers of tools and blanks are happy to give advice over the phone.
These blanks came from Rockler, tools all were sharp. I'm thinking of scrapping this idea and use some hard maple I have rather than wait on more blanks to come in the mail. After doing some research I found as stated above that there are many different types of acrylic.
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- www.reallyruralwoodworks.com
I turned acrylic / resin/ epoxy once. Never again. I hated the smell (and acrylic gives me an allergic reaction) and worse, I hated the stringy, clingy (static cling) mess that I had an awful time cleaning off me, my clothes, and the lathe & tools.
Nothin' but wood on my lathe from now on. (Though I don't mind tiny bit of epoxy used as fill in some pieces)
Nothin' but wood on my lathe from now on. (Though I don't mind tiny bit of epoxy used as fill in some pieces)
When I’ve turned acrylic pen blanks I’ve found you need sharp tools and a *very* light touch as others have mentioned. It’s very easy to drag chips out if you push in too hard, imagine scraping would be very difficult but don’t recall that I’ve tried. The reward for patiently cutting these down then sanding up through all grades of micro mesh is a beautiful, durable finish without any “finish”. My wife loves seam rippers etc made with acrylic.
I found using an old tooth brush helped get the ribbons cleaned off the mandrel. If your shop is low humidity the ribbons will cling to everything.
Negative rake scraper work well with acrylics.
If you have chunks coming out it is not a tool problem it is a glue up problem. There are spaces between the acrylic and brass with no glue, those are the chunks coming out.
If your blanks from Rockler are called unlace acrylester from Woodturningz, it is a difficult resin to learn to turn on. It is chippy by nature and scraping will not work. A sharp skew, riding the bevel at as high of an rpm as you are comfortable with will work. A negative rake carbide (either cutter or tool) will make it easy.
You can treat it as if you are turning Ivory, NRS will do a better job than a gouge. Turned acrylic once, and that was enough. MOnths later I kept finding dust and ribbons.
I have turned hundreds of various plastic pen blanks. The key is very high speed and a simple set of carbide tools. I bought a cheap set from Amazon years ago and I am still using them when I do turn the occasional pen.
Once the blank is in round light passing cuts with the square tool will get you to the thickness you want to be at. In some cases where the plastic is too brittle (thinking tru stone blanks) you may want to grab some 80 grit for final shaping.
I have taught people who have never even seen a lathe how to turn a plastic blank in around 30 minutes. Keep at it
Once the blank is in round light passing cuts with the square tool will get you to the thickness you want to be at. In some cases where the plastic is too brittle (thinking tru stone blanks) you may want to grab some 80 grit for final shaping.
I have taught people who have never even seen a lathe how to turn a plastic blank in around 30 minutes. Keep at it
Yes. About 7 or 8 yrs ago I toured David Warther’s studio/store in OH (ivory boat carvings) and actually got to talk with him. He recommended nrs’s for ivory. When I did my 1st turnings with plastic, not sure if it was acrylic or polyester, I tried everything, remembered what David said about ivory, and viola nrs’s it is. Have turned both acrylic and polyester since, and nrs’s are the best way.
I dont turn much of it for the reasons everyone gave - what a mess! But, for tough applications, like kitchen ware, wood with finish just doesnt hold up to grimy hands.
The blanks are wood turningz acrylic acetate is what the label says, as Mike said they are very brittle and chippy. I agree with everyone that it's a very messy and smelly product. what I did was run about 1700 rpm and used my square radius carbide tool and my small skew chisel as a negative rake scraper with a very light touch and it worked good, then used the micro mesh through all the grades and got a very nice finish. I think the biggest thing I was doing wrong was having too heavy of a hand getting it round and Rusty mentioned glue up. I probably didn't let the epoxy set long enough (1 hour) but I did have complete glue coverage on the tube. I also learned when drilling the blank you have to clear the chips about every 1/4" or the blank will split. I have to buy another blank to finish the project will let everyone know how it goes. Thank You all.
Follow up for turning acrylic blanks. I got a new blank and finished the dart set. I talked to Wood Turningz about the problems with acrylic acetate. They sugggested a negative rake carbide scraper for this material, so I bought the Easy Wood Tools negative rake scraper blade and made my own handle. I used my square carbide cutter on an angle shear scrape until blank was close to shape I wanted then used the carbide negative rake scraper to finsh the shape. Then sanded it with the micro sanding system through all grits to get a polished look. Thanks for the suggestions and I'm still finding ribbons after a few days of cleanup. Here's the results along with the tool holder I made.
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Looks great! The colors are awesome.