I've turned about 100 Inlace Acrylester blanks from pens to the large stuff for Ice Cream scoops and projects of that sort. Most of what everyone says above is true....you must have razor sharp tools, if you start to loose your ribbon or feel like you have to push the tool, sharpen it immediately! Whenever I order them I always buy an extra one or two depending on the project. Even if you did it correctly, it still might blow...just the slightest catch when you are close to your finished diameter can blow up on you.
Do not ever use Carbide tools on them, they won't work on it. Don't use scrapers on them either...shatter city!!! I use a 3/4" roughing gouge down to about 1 /32" from finished diameter, then a skew on it's side at a down angle like a scraper...sharpened with the burr up and I take out all any uneven areas and chips.
They wear like iron...nothing else on the market wears that well...I've got pens that are 5+ years old without a scratch on them, but the pen kit is wearing away. The depth and colors are amazing. But I know that when I turn one, I'm going to be taking much longer than a normal acrylic pen. You might want to go a bit slower with your lathe speed, I used to turn them around 3,000 and blew out about 1/2 of them, I now turn them around 1,500 and have far fewer problems.---Rich