medlongpens
Member
What is a good speed to turn pens at, and do you turn wood and acrylic at the same speed? I normally turn between 1500-1800 RPM. I wasn't sure if that was to slow.
Having a manually-adjustable 5-speed lathe and being naturally lazy, I've settled on 2200 (speed 4) for most of my pens (wood & acrylic) and leave it there for sanding & finishing. About the only time I adjust it is to drop it down to 1 or 2 (760 or 1100) for applying CA (which is seldom) or when the material dictates a higher or lower speed.
I started out using speed 5 (3200) for most pens & it worked great but that was a little fast for sanding (for me anyway) so I would drop it down to 2200 or 1600 for sanding then back up to 3200 for finishing (I mostly use friction polish). After some experimenting, I've found that I can get pretty much the same results just using 2200 for most everything.
If I was as experienced as a lot of the folks here, I might be more particular about my speed settings in which case I would get a VS lathe.