Corian as blank material

[vacca rabite]

Has anyone tried using corian (the dense material, looks like granite, used for kitchen and bathroom counters) as pen blank material.

For kicks the other day I cut off a small piece, chucked it into the lathe, turned it round (carbide tools) and then polished it out. I was VERY impressed with what I got, and the material was free. Building sites and contractors always have scraps of the stuff.

I also tried corian to corian laminations with medium CA, and the stuff bonded together faster then skin, and turned really easily.

This may be an old trick, but I just stumble on it over the weekend due to being bored and looking at my lathe and my scrap bin over the weekend.

I am going to make a few pens. Thought I'd share, since this seems to be an abundant, cheap and way durable alternative to acrylic blanks.

Zach

 

[KBs Pensnmore]

Corian is great for Pens and also for accents. Polishes up great with micromesh and car polish. Turns OK with normal HSS tools also, just requires sharpening more often.
Kryn

 

[Timbo]

Not new to most of the folks here Zach, but thanks for posting. There are a couple of members (corian king, elody21) who sell Corian here, you can probably get some nicer colors than the typical counter top fair.

 

[JAZNCARR]

hello

I've got about 100 different colors of corian and I can cut slim line or. 1 inch wide blanks. For you to laminate and make larger pens. Also go on youtube. Captn eddie has a few videos as do several others...

 

[biednick]

Don't mean to hijack, but do you know how well it threads?

 

[ashaw]

I still have about 30 sink cuts out plus a old Corian counter top.

 

[underdog]

Bonding with CA glue holds up well in the long run?

 

[WWAtty]

Bonding with CA glue holds up well in the long run?

I've had good results with epoxy to laminate an assorted bunch of 2x2x1/2" samples a friend at Home Depot gave me. I lightly sanded the surfaces with 220 grit paper before bonding. Glued them up over a year ago and only recently got around to turning a couple of them. No problems.

 

[dtswebb]

Zach,

Corian turns well with the carbide insert tools. One caution is to keep everything aligned when assembling the pen as the Corian is brittle and I lost my first Corian pen (an El Grande rollerball) on assembly. Chamfering the tubes helps.

Not to get off on a tangent, but since you mentioned getting bored. try to find some Trex (fake wood decking) scraps and give them a go. The Trex turns a little strange (I describe it as turning wet cardboard) but finishes fine and makes an interesting pen.

Matthew

 

[vacca rabite]

Funny you mentionTrex. I had been wondering what that would turn like. Assume that you turn it with the "grain" and not across?

Also (and totally OT)- Modesto CA. I called that place home for about 6 years in the late 80s. Whats it like these days?

Zach

 

[jd99]

Zach,

Corian turns well with the carbide insert tools. One caution is to keep everything aligned when assembling the pen as the Corian is brittle and I lost my first Corian pen (an El Grande rollerball) on assembly. Chamfering the tubes helps.
Matthew

I have developed a method of doing corian that looks like it works with no cracking, I sell a lot of corian pens, and have had an issue of them cracking I would loose about 5 to 10% of my run to cracking.

But I think (still doing proof runs) this will work, I've done 70 pens to date with the new method and only had one crack and it was due to mis alingment, when I get this next batch of 50 done I'm going to do a little write up and post it.

 

[dtswebb]

Zach,

I'm not too sure there is any "grain" to Trex. Our shop folks were experimenting with using Trex to replace the side boards on a stakebed Ford truck in our fleet. I got the cut offs when they were trimming the boards to fit. As a side note, the Trex worked well as a replacement but the side gates are about three times as heavy as they were before the Trex.

Modesto still has a rural feel to it; I've been living here since 1994 after moving out from the Bay Area. I enjoy living here and hope that this is the final stop. Right now unemployment is closer to 20% than 10% and the housing market took a serious dump (too many people were buying and selling homes and not looking at a place to live). So when the loans readjusted and there was no one to buy, a lot of folks just walked away. With all that said, Modesto is still my home and I enjoy living here. We have minor league baseball, minor league hockey down the road and we're really not that far from the Bay Area.

Take care and have fun with the Trex.

Matthew