Acrylester tips

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sbarton22

sbarton22

Member
Joined
Sep 7, 2011
Messages
268
Location
Kansas City
I have a tendency to blow these blanks up. I just made a stopper from it and accidentally dropped it...explosion.

Are there any tips for working with this stuff or just stay away from it?
 
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The usual answer--sharp tools, high speed revolutions and light cuts.

Gerry Wilhite (Chasper) used acrylester for his demo at MPG. Just to show what we mean by "light cuts". I find it useful to keep vibration down as well, so I use a large skew (1"+) until the very end.

I could SHOW you much easier than TELLING you, but that doesn't help you now!!
 
ed4copies said:
The usual answer--sharp tools, high speed revolutions and light cuts.

Gerry Wilhite (Chasper) used acrylester for his demo at MPG. Just to show what we mean by "light cuts". I find it useful to keep vibration down as well, so I use a large skew (1"+) until the very end.

I could SHOW you much easier than TELLING you, but that doesn't help you now!!
Click to expand...

ironman123 said:
Ed, you won in the answer department.

sharp tools, high speed revolutions and light cuts

Ray
Click to expand...
Not light cuts.......very light cuts. If you move too fast or try to take off too much in a pass, it will chip out.
 
I did find that light cuts helped. I also found that it chipped out on any tool but a scraper or a skew via scraper cut. I only got flying chips when I tried to get a slicing cut.

I sort of got the feeling that I needed to adjust form to accommodate only being able to use a scraper. Does that sound correct?
 
I can tell if my tools aren't sharp enough and/or I'm cutting too aggressively--the chips come off in little sleet-like pellets instead of nice thin ribbons. I love the look of an acrylester pen, but it takes a looooong time to get there.

Patience, Grasshopper.
 
I turn a ton of these and everything everyone here has said is accurate in regard to the speed, sharp tools, light cuts, etc...

I will be even more specific.
I turn at no less than 1850rpm. Mostly 2200rpm or so.

I use a 3/4" roughing gouge held sideways on the tool rest and used like a skew. I let the edge slice away the material. The round edged gouge doesn't require near the profficiency that a corrctly used skew does and is almost completely forgiving. It is important that you get a little starting edge going and then push or pull the tool evenly and consistently across the blank without changing the angle of the tool.

I now have gone to a spindle gouge with a fingernail grind with fairly large wings and I find that I can be more aggresive with the initial shapping.

Once down to almost final diameter, I will use a 1" skew as a scrapper and take off wisps of the material as I run it up and down the blank to take off any tool ridges and adjust the ends down to the bushings.

Then I slow the lathe to 600rpm and wet sand starting with 400 and then 600, 1000, 1500 and finally buffing with Meguire's swirl remover car wax.

I'll try to make a video this week and get it posted on my website.
 
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