Bree
Member
My last tip got some good discussion and different options. So here is another. Let's see where this one goes. I have been doing some demos on turning Inlace Acrylester blanks. It is very chippy stuff as you can see when you look at the edges of an Inlace blank. That scares people away.
BUT... the resin takes a very high solid load and a very high polish. That makes for some great pens full of nice sparkly and colorful goodies. So learning how to work with this material is a good idea. Also you can often buy blanks cheap since stores like to move them and there is resistance to turning them.
To successfully drill them I set my drill press depth so that the drill tip just breaks the bottom surface but does NOT come all the way through. Often you have very small amounts of excess so doing this allows you enough room to cut off the bottom on the bandsaw which is a best practice for all synthetic blanks.
Before I drill them I remove any flash from the bottom so it is dead flat. Then I TIGHTLY wrap the bottom part with STRAPPING tape flush with the bottom of the blank... one wrap plus a slight overlap. This is just about the strongest tape you can put on there and it helps keep the internal structure from fracturing.
For drilling I use a Colt Parabolic bit. I think it is without equal for drilling this kind of material. It clears the refuse better than any other bit I have used. That keeps it running cool and clean. Indeed Colt recommends one straight shot to the bottom with no in and out. I do this on PR blanks but on the Inlace I do pull out and go back in just to let it cool a bit more. 500 RPM on the drill press is what I use.
For milling, I use a four spur mill and I try to keep it very sharp. Even so the material sometimes will pit and that is not good. So... I have found that slowing my drill to an extremely slow speed and literally pushing the blank into the bit and holding it under a good bit of pressure will give me a clean cut and no pits on the end of the blank. Running the drill at high speed can be a very dangerous thing to do so ratchet down the speed big time... when you are getting ribbons... keep doing what you are doing. If you are getting dust, try increasing pressure and slowing speed.
Once you have the blanks drilled and milled it just a matter of using a scary sharp skew and you are good to go for a great pen. LOL! Well there are some tricks to that but that's another tip!!
Now have at it boyz and girlz! Here are some PIX of the last one I turned with a Rockler Peacock Inlace blank. It look just fabulous in person. I gave the other half to a friend for her birthday and I might as well have given her a bar of gold for the happiness it brought her.
:biggrin::biggrin::biggrin:
BUT... the resin takes a very high solid load and a very high polish. That makes for some great pens full of nice sparkly and colorful goodies. So learning how to work with this material is a good idea. Also you can often buy blanks cheap since stores like to move them and there is resistance to turning them.
To successfully drill them I set my drill press depth so that the drill tip just breaks the bottom surface but does NOT come all the way through. Often you have very small amounts of excess so doing this allows you enough room to cut off the bottom on the bandsaw which is a best practice for all synthetic blanks.
Before I drill them I remove any flash from the bottom so it is dead flat. Then I TIGHTLY wrap the bottom part with STRAPPING tape flush with the bottom of the blank... one wrap plus a slight overlap. This is just about the strongest tape you can put on there and it helps keep the internal structure from fracturing.
For drilling I use a Colt Parabolic bit. I think it is without equal for drilling this kind of material. It clears the refuse better than any other bit I have used. That keeps it running cool and clean. Indeed Colt recommends one straight shot to the bottom with no in and out. I do this on PR blanks but on the Inlace I do pull out and go back in just to let it cool a bit more. 500 RPM on the drill press is what I use.
For milling, I use a four spur mill and I try to keep it very sharp. Even so the material sometimes will pit and that is not good. So... I have found that slowing my drill to an extremely slow speed and literally pushing the blank into the bit and holding it under a good bit of pressure will give me a clean cut and no pits on the end of the blank. Running the drill at high speed can be a very dangerous thing to do so ratchet down the speed big time... when you are getting ribbons... keep doing what you are doing. If you are getting dust, try increasing pressure and slowing speed.
Once you have the blanks drilled and milled it just a matter of using a scary sharp skew and you are good to go for a great pen. LOL! Well there are some tricks to that but that's another tip!!
Now have at it boyz and girlz! Here are some PIX of the last one I turned with a Rockler Peacock Inlace blank. It look just fabulous in person. I gave the other half to a friend for her birthday and I might as well have given her a bar of gold for the happiness it brought her.
:biggrin::biggrin::biggrin:
