Flame finishing Acrylics

[turnsomeantlers]

I was in conversation with a duck call making friend and he was telling me it's pretty common place to finish acrylic calls using a torch. Watched a video online about it, was pretty amazed at how simple and fast it was. Began wondering if anyone had ever tried it with acrylic pen blanks.
If you have tried this please throw your 2 cents in, I would be interested to hear what you think.

Dave

 

[Papa mark]

Dave, I am from the sign industry a few years back and we used to do a flame polish on 1/2" thick clear acrylic letters. We had to sand them fairly smooth first and then lightly hit them with a torch. Then came out crystal clear, if you have ever seen any clear sign letters in the malls, this is how they are made, just don't get to close to the acrylic and keep the torch moving. I haddn't thought of that but it is worth the try.

 

[wolftat]

I would do a test on a scrap before I tried to polish a pen. The acrylics that we use are a bit different than most of the stuff used for signs. I would not even try it with Alumilite, but it could be fun.
Also, some acrylics will start to get stress cracks after flame polishing that can show up a couple of days or weeks after the polish is done. I'm starting to think that the pens may be too thin walled for flame polishing, but anything is worth trying..