Corian

[Wild Turkey]

Anybody out there ever use Corian, and if so, any thing special to keep in mind.

 

[Skye]

Yeah, a lot of people to use it. General notes?

Rough up the surfaces and CA will stick it together and the seam will be almost invisible.

It's realitvly hard. Use sharp tools and I'll even sand down the edges.

Some people think it's bad to breathe in, even when just heating it up, so wear some protection.

Wetsand it with Micromesh and it'll look like glass when it's done. No finish needed.

Very opaque so coloring the tubes is rarely needed, even in the thinnest of slimlines.

I've heard countertop guys have to pay to rid themselves of the scraps, so if you go buy and ask for some, they'll likely give you more than you can use in scraps.

 

[wolftat]

Don't eat it, it tastes terrible.

 

[jimbob91577]

Rough up the surfaces and CA will stick it together and the seam will be almost invisible.

What exactly do you mean here Skye?

 

[hughbie]

skye means.....making bigger pieces from smaller pieces

john.....that stuff is hard, when you turn it........it comes off in little chunks or more like dust.....i didn't get much 'ribbon' when i turned one
you got a supply somewhere????? <wink> <wink>

 

[alphageek]

What exactly do you mean here Skye?

He means that if you give a slight roughness to it (I use 400 grit) and CA 2 pieces together, it can look seamless when glued up. And it normally needs to be glued up since most of it is too thin for anything but straight slimlines.

 

[its_virgil]

There is an "up" and "down" surface to solid surface material, of which corian is only one of them. If the solid surface has a pattern or small colored chips on the up side, then glue the two "up" surfaces together. The "up" surface will look much better than the "down" surface. By gluing the "up" surfaces against each other the best looking portion of the solid surface will be left on the pen and the "down" surfaces will be in ribbons on the floor. I do hope this makes some kind of sense. :biggrin: I've not had any trouble with corian...it turns nicely and come off the skew in ribbons. Other brands should do so as well.
Do a good turn daily!
Don

 

[NewLondon88]

There is also a product called EOS which is very similar, but is thicker.
at 5/4 (1.25") it is more than thick enough for any pen, and no need to glue.

The kitchen cabinet makers never know what to do with the double sink
cutouts, but it is much too expensive to throw away so they save it.
Then I come along and they give me 200-300 lbs at a time.
I think I swapped 2 cases of Bud Light for about 500 lbs.

It is good for other things besides pens.. great for making jigs, stop blocks,
shims etc.

The dust is no good for lungs or motors, so make sure your dust collector is
up to snuff.

 

[jskeen]

At 300 degrees F, corian becomes plastic. This can be a good thing, and a bad thing. A good thing in that you can stack a bunch of thin strips of it together apply some pressure and heat, and it will bend to whatever shape you want. Looking for a bowl blank without having to turn away half of a blank? Bend a corian sink cutout over a wooden form, turn the edges thin and add a foot. Sell for a heinous price to somebody who don't know better. Bad, in that if you're sanding your freshly turned whatever, and try to use your sandpaper just a little too long, you can hit that magical temperature and viola, you just warped whatever it is you were working with. Bummage.

Other than that, it's fun stuff, it laminates well, turns fairly easily, is very stable once shaped and comes in lots of fun colors now. Enjoy!

James

 

[workinforwood]

Didn't hear anyone mention it...so I'll add that it can be cut and/or drilled with typical woodworking tools. Table saw, scrollsaw, bandsaw, router...whatever!

 

[ldb2000]

Here's a pen made from Black and White Corian

 

[Skye]

^ Do not be swayed by this man into making corain pens. His freakish ability to make nice ones cannot be duplicated.

 

[ldb2000]

ROFLMAO

 

[Skye]

^ Look, look how he mocks us!

 

[jedgerton]

One tip, if you do have some voids that show up at seams, just wipe on a coat of medium CA and then use your skew to take the surface back down to the corian. Finish it just like you would finish an acrylic blank.

John

 

[ldb2000]

An even better way to fill any voids or seam lines is to use some CA and a piece of 320 or 400 grit sandpaper .
Start sanding the blank and add a drop or two of CA (I use thin but med works too) , as you sand you will make a CA/sanding dust slurry that will fill any voids or cracks and seam lines .
Remember to sand each color of corian at a time to keep the colors seperated .

 

[Wild Turkey]

Thanks guys for all the information. Will check around in nearby town for counter top people. Small rural area so may be a little hard but several on e-bay really cheap. Hope I am good enough to get my tools sharp enough to turn this stuff. Newbe at this so will probably screw it up royally. Have sharpened all ready, but just truning different woods that aren't probably as hard. Have done a couple of acrylic blanks and they didn't turn out too bad, so will give it a try when I lay my hands on some. Again thanks to everyone.

By the way, nice pen Butch!!!

 

[hughbie]

JOHN, remember to try to bring your tools down for the meeting.....i've done some adjustments to my grinder.......GAWD i love it!:biggrin::biggrin::biggrin:

 

[wolftat]

At 300 degrees F, corian becomes plastic. This can be a good thing, and a bad thing. A good thing in that you can stack a bunch of thin strips of it together apply some pressure and heat, and it will bend to whatever shape you want. Looking for a bowl blank without having to turn away half of a blank? Bend a corian sink cutout over a wooden form, turn the edges thin and add a foot. Sell for a heinous price to somebody who don't know better. Bad, in that if you're sanding your freshly turned whatever, and try to use your sandpaper just a little too long, you can hit that magical temperature and viola, you just warped whatever it is you were working with. Bummage.

Other than that, it's fun stuff, it laminates well, turns fairly easily, is very stable once shaped and comes in lots of fun colors now. Enjoy!

James

Please be aware that while corian can be bent and is fun to work with, it does emit a poisonous gas when it gets up over 250 degrees. You can bend it safely at around 225 degrees and not wind up sucking on an oxygen tank for the rest of your life.

 

[jskeen]

Interesting note, I had not seen any references to poison gas until now. I pulled the MSDS for Corian here: http://www.parksite.com/productgroups/msds/msds_3_40.pdf It does state that "Temperatures reached while thermoforming "Corian" Solid Surface Material are high enough to release some methyl methacrylate or butyl acrylate."

There are exposure limits suggested for these chemicals, and known adverse reactions to overexposure. Bottom line, I guess I'll start being more careful while bending this stuff.

Thanks for the heads up Neil.

 

[M3rl3n]

Ok Corian experts... I picked up a couple of pieces of Corian the other day with the idea of making a few pens, and one thing that I was really interested in doing was using some of the white that I got as accent stripes at various angles. My saw blade is 1/8" so I need some ideas of how to machine it down to that thickness. Ideas?

Thanks.

Dan

 

[navycop]

I enjoy corian. I picked up a couple scraps from a dealer and probally won't do much wood now. It offers alot more color and finishes easier. Just my $.02.

 

[TellicoTurning]

I don't like to work with Corian... so I just cleaned out my shop and mailed it off to someone who can do something with it..

 

[Leviblue]

I enjoy working with Corian material. I have had success in turning it and it finishes easily with micro mesh material. The largest pen that I can get out of a standard blank, 1/2"x1/2", is the Saturn style that still uses the 7mm but is turned larger than the Slimline.

Thanks,
Kevin

 

[paramount Pen]

3/4

I saw a post for 3/4 corian but didn't get it and then later found a place where I might could sell a few pens if I had it and when I responded to the old post I didn't get ant response. Does any one know if 3/4 corian exists and where I can get some?

 

[JAZNCARR]

carbide anything works the best

You can use a regular saw blade to cut it but if your cutting tons of it you should use a solid surface blade. as for scrolling and drilling just use a carbide tipped drill and don't let the blanks heat up too much....Also leave your blanks a little long and only drill as deep enough to glue your tube in and snad down to the bushing. you get tear out on the edges if you go throu the blank unsupported

As for gluing Medium Ca works great as do the colored adhesive kits but they are much much to expensive unless your making something very specific..
EOS works great but only comes in about 30 colors and none of them are very flattering... Some Corian and LG products come in 3/4 inch and you don't have to glue them..
I have a little tutorial listed at corianpenblanks.com and I'll working on a video it'll be up soon

 

[Write Inc. Pens]

I have just tried turning Corian with two glued samples together. I roughed them up with 200 grit and used quite a bit of CA medium to glue them and left them overnight. This morning I went to drill through the middle of them (split the colors), and when I was done drilling both the two blanks came unglued. I drilled really slow making sure there was no heat build-up. So I tried to rough them up again and put them in a clamp. I needed to drill a slightly larger hole and it did the same thing after letting the two pieces sit in the clamp for about 10 mins. Any tips??

 

[Rob73]

I picked up some Corian from Jazzncar (1/2") awhile ago and finally got around to doing my first pen with it..

My experience: [it's about to cost me more money]

Drilling was a slow processes and with 1/2" you better be on center because there not really a lot of room to work with. I had a little blow out but nothing major, long as you have some extra length to square off on should be good.

Turning it was time consuming for me. I knew the material was hard so instead of going right to lathe I rounded off the hard corners on my belt sander. This, I think, saved me a considerable amount of time. (I do this with acrylics as well) However, I'm not pen turning expert like a lot of guys on this forum so maybe my tools just are not super sharp slowing me down. I could only get the corian to really chip off no matter what tool I used. A round nose scraper ended up working the best for me.

I turned the pen on a mandrel (brand new rod) and still came out of round. I've had it with these damn pen mandrels, no matter what I do I always seem to be out of round and it's not like I'm 'pushing' into the material. So JohnnyCnc is going to get an order from me soon for some TBC equipment.

For finishing I hand sanded to try and work out some of the 'out of round' and then started with the PSI acrylic sanding pads. I wet sanded through those and then applied novus 2. I have to admit I heard a lot of people rave about this novus but I've tried it on acrylic + this corian and I'm not very impressed. Luckily I picked up a sample kit off amazon which had all the novus polish for like 5 bucks. (maybe I need to sand more before applying)

In the end turning the corian has made me decide to buy a few more toys :

Turn between center setup - From JohnnyCnC
Some carbide tipped bits - Where ever I find them the cheapest lol
My first carbide tool insert set - getting from http://eddiecastelin.com/products_and_services -- like this guys youtube videos as well.

Anyway here is a pic : I know the picture is horrible but I had thrown out my back and was not in the mood to fiddle with the light box. Just wanted to snap one off and lay down.