Matte finish on acrylic

[qquake]

I have a friend who prefers a matte finish on pens. Which is annoying, considering all the time I've put into perfecting my finish! In the past, I've polished the bodies then hit them with 0000 steel wool to dull them. Worked pretty good. But for some reason, with this particular blank, i'm getting a lot of visible scratches. I've used the same technique, with different results. Anybody have any ideas?

 

[Dehn0045]

I normally sand with 3m wet/dry sandpaper (I wet sand at pretty high rpm, if you go dry then lower rpm to avoid heat). I find that 800-1000 grit show visible scratches, 1500-2000 are pretty reasonable for matte finish, 3000 is probably close to your silver cigar (a little bit shiny). I never leave a matte finish (yuk! ) but just something that I've noticed while going through the grits. I don't do a lot of acrylics, but from what I recall they tend to be similar. Just be careful if you go with high rpm wet sanding, once you get a slurry going you can remove material pretty fast, leading to the blank being undersized final diameter.

 

[Ironwood]

I remember a number of years ago, there was someone flame polishing their blanks. This left them smooth but no shine at all.
I just can't remember what material they were using it on.

 

[Ironwood]

I did a search and found the thread I was thinking of.
It was Jonathan Brooks and the blank was timber with a CA finish. So not really what you were asking, but worth a look anyway.

I was Dying to play with fire again!

As sick of CA as I am I just had to try out the flame finish again. Tweaked my method a bit and this go around I'm really happy! On top of the flame finish I also used some wood that I color stabilized myself with Cactus Juice. First up is a piece of Spalted Pecan that I dyed red and put on...

www.penturners.org

 

[Dr_N]

No answer to your question, but that gray/silver cigar pen looks good!

 

[mick]

Try starting over dry sanding starting around 400 and sand through 1500 toy should be a nice smooth semi gloss finish without visible scratches. Almost all the time you wet sand you're polishing as you sand. I true matte finish is hard to achieve on plastics. This is my experience you may get different results.
Good luck!

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

 

[qquake]

I might try sanding it dry with Micro Mesh and see what happens.

 

[WriteON]

I might try sanding it dry with Micro Mesh and see what happens.

My gut is steel wool scratched the surface.
Use micro mesh normally. Use water, Dry will burn it. No polishes. Clean, wipe dry (with lathe turned off). Might be as good as it's going to get.

 

[wouldentu2?]

Sand to your highest shine then start going back down till you find an acceptable nonshine. Use water and don't press hard.

 

[johncrane]

i use BLO and 1200 grt and sand length ways with the sandpaper wrapped between 3 fingers and with the lathe off i like the BLO as a rubbing oil if you need less shine go down to 1000 grit

 

[qquake]

i use BLO and 1200 grt and sand length ways with the sandpaper wrapped between 3 fingers and with the lathe off i like the BLO as a rubbing oil if you need less shine go down to 1000 grit

You use linseed oil on acrylic?

 

[johncrane]

yeah i use it as a rubbing oil there's no friction, the sand paper just glides i find it doesn't stink up my fingers, there's no dust so i dont have to wear a mask that stops my glasses fogging up, the main thing it works on plastics

 

[qquake]

My gut is steel wool scratched the surface.
Use micro mesh normally. Use water, Dry will burn it. No polishes. Clean, wipe dry (with lathe turned off). Might be as good as it's going to get.

I repolished it with 3M Tri-M-Ite, then used Micro Mesh wet "backwards". It's slightly more dull, but no scratches visible to the naked eye.

 

[WriteON]

I repolished it with 3M Tri-M-Ite, then used Micro Mesh wet "backwards". It's slightly more dull, but no scratches visible to the naked eye.

Looks good...maybe as Matte as it's going to get. What is it going in-between?

 

[qquake]

It's not as matte as I've achieved in the past, but I think you're right. This is as matte as this blank is going to get. The pen is an American Beauty in satin gun metal.