Turning Corian Blanks

[johnberb]

Hello,

I have just been turning pens for a few months now and thouht it might be fun to try out some Corian.

I have thus far cut the blanks to length and drilled them . I plan to make both the standard Twist Eurpean style pens.

My questions are regardin the speeds and methods I should turn this material?

Read Dick Sing's book "Pens from the Lathe" and see he uses a buffer and Tripoli polish to finish out his Corian projects but he really doesn't go in to much detail past that?

On my wood blanks I have been starting with 150 grit and finally finishing up with the foam pads that I believe go up to 1600 grit then slow down the lathe and apply "Myland's High Speed Polish" and when this is done I have a small "Apprentice" brand buffer that I use to bufr out the pen with Remassnce Was Polish and the jobs come out looking very nice.

Any help here sure would be appreciated.

Thanks so much,

 

[ed4copies]

John,

Alice (Elody) is the corian expert. Probably could do a search here for her name and "polish" and get the best answer.

I only do enough to be dangerous and give you a less than optimal answer.[][]

Welcome to our site!!

 

[JimGo]

I have only done three Corian pens, but I used a scraper and skew to get the shape I wanted, and then just used the foam pads MicroMesh makes for acrylics (you can see them here http://www.pennstateind.com/store/pkfinkit.html and Woodcraft, Pens of Color, and Woodturningz all carry them, as may others). I ran through all 6 or 8 pads, then used some Hut plastic polish to get rid of the fine marks that I could still see (with the help of some magnifiers). I didn't try to go any shinier than that, but the white compound on a buffing wheel <b>might</b> have brought things to an even nicer shine.

 

[melogic]

I'm going to move this topic to the "Pen Turning" forum.

 

[johnberb]

Many thianks to all who responded.

I did a member seasrch for Alkce (Elody) but didn;t have any luck

Thanks Again

 

[DCBluesman]

John...go to the members page and pull up Elody21's profile. Drop her an email through the forum. I'm sure she would be glad to answer your questions, but she doesn't always monitor every post on the site.

 

[Deere41h]

Hi John....I turn corian at the next to the fastest speed on my Jet mini. (2630) I use a skew for turning all of it. I finish by sanding to 400 and then Micro Mesh with water to 12000. Apply a coat of Mequiar's #7 auto polish with the lathe off and then buff with a cloth with the lathe back on. I then apply a coat of Ren wax 12 to 24 hours later.

Hope that helps.

 

[rtparso]

Same as John but. I have slowed down the lathe speed to about 50% and I use hut PPP for the final polish. I slowed the lathe speed because I was getting vibration at higher speeds.

 

[johnberb]

Thanks again to all for your suggestions this really helps me load my guns when I get arroud to working with this Corian

I did email Alice but as yet have not received any reply -- looks to be a very busy lady with all her different projects.

Regards,

 

[JimGo]

John,
I'm actually surprised - she is usually pretty responsive about Corian. She may be on vacation or be dealing with other issues. Hopefully everything is OK.

 

[Randy_]

I've had a couple of Corian pens crack when I pressed in the nib.....not quite sure why. Next time, I am going to ream out the brass tube so the fit is not so tight and then use CA for a little extra holding power.

 

[smoky10]

Randy, you may not have been starting the nib straight(I wasn't) and caused the tube to flex a little and cracked the corian, I had this problem. Also a tiny bit of glue in the tube can make the it flex.

 

[Randy_]

Tom: I've have a pretty good setup for pressing parts and I do chamfer the brass tubes before assembly. Don't think off-center assembly is the problem. Glue might be a problem; but reaming the tubes will take care of that.

 

[johnberb]

I hear a bit about the pens cracking when the nib is swaged in. On my wood pens I use a bit fo two-part (15 minute epoxy) for lubrication and also use me Wilson Deburring tool on the brass tube.

I think that Wilson still makes these deburring tools that I used to use all the time when I was reloading ammo.
http://www.lewilson.com/

I alsi use a Palmgren 1 ton arbor press which as about a 6" throat capacity for a straighter alignment.