mikefoye
Member
I turn a lot of acrylic blanks and I use carbide tools exclusively for all of my wood and acrylic turnings. I ran in to chipping and breaking problems some time ago trying to turn Mica blanks from PSI and got so frustrated that I just don't buy them anymore. I recently had a similar problem with Rhino blanks but I sped the lathe up a little and took much shallower cuts and took my time (after reading reviews) and was able to get the desired result. Now I am REALLY having a problem with Stars and Stripes blanks (also from PSI). When I read reviews they all say how hard these are to turn without chipping and cracking. To try something new, this weekend I purchased new Woodpecker tools because they have a 45 deg. bevel on the shaft and I thought that it would help me "cut" the blanks instead of "scraping" them. I have the lathe at around 3,000. The Woodpecker carbides are really very sharp and if I go really slow I can get them close. I read a couple of reviews that suggested using dull tools! I don't know how to do that because I buy carbides because they are always sharp. The last two blanks that I made I roughed them with the tools and they were chipped a bit. I then resorted to a Dremel rotary sanding disc to get them down close to size and below the chips and then very slowly and with really shallow cuts I was able to use the 2 deg radius scraper to finish them good enough for final sanding. Every single one of these I turn has chipping problems no matter what I try. I bought a bunch of these for my American Patriot and Salute to Troops pens and am hoping that someone out there has a magic bullet idea that will keep me from breaking these things because they are strikingly beautiful when they are done.