Rhino plastic

Signed-In Members Don't See This Ad
lorbay

lorbay

Member
Joined
Jul 2, 2009
Messages
3,396
Location
BC. Canada
For those of you that make custom pens can you tell me if Rhino plastic threads as good as Alumilite. ?? Thanks
Lin.
 
Signed-In Members Don't See This Ad
I've got 30 or so Rhino Plastic blanks but not a single Alumilite blank or I would try it for you. I'd also be interested in hearing from anyone who has. I'll try one of the RP blanks anyway and see if it crumbles or cracks. Never tried the RP before.
 
Last edited:
MichaelD said:
I've got 30 or so Rhino Plastic blanks but not a single Alumilite blank or I would try it for you. I'd also be interested in hearing from anyone who has. I'll try one of the RP blanks anyway and see if it crumbles or cracks. Never tried the RP before.
Click to expand...
Be waiting to hear from you, but by the looks of this thread not many others have done threading in this stuff either.
Lin.
 
I'll get some pics loaded later today but my initial feelings are not good. I turned down a short scrap and threaded the same end for a section (m9x.75 internal) and a cap (m13x1.0 external). The waste was mixed cuttings and powder. The threads were not sharp and clean but that could have also been because I was in a hurry. The worst part was when I started the cap threads it completely snapped a jagged ring off the end. I always ease the edges so the die doesn't hit a hard edge so that wasn't the cause. And this was before I drilled for the section so there was plenty of support there. Very brittle, more so than acrylic.

I've just started moving from kits to components/scratch-builts so my experience is limited but in the last month I've threaded a lot of acrylic and ebonite and not had this happen. I've not used Alumilite yet so nothing to compare.

I like RP for my kits and have sold quite a few pens with their blanks but I don't think I'll use it, except as maybe finial or banding, on the other stuff. I'll post pics after we take Dad out for his Saturday excursions.
 
Lin, Here's a picture of what I ended up with. Note the breakout at the front. This happened after the first couple of turns of the die. I didn't bother cleaning it up but just started the die again and got it to catch and continued on. If you can see it the thread tops are a little flat so I actually started out with the tenon a little undersize so the die wasn't really stressed at all.

The white residue you see is leftover AFTER I cleaned the threads with my brass wire brush. It's very fine chipping in the bottom of the threads.

If you haven't figured it out yet, my opinion is Rhino Plastics is not a first choice for threading operations.
 

Attachments

  • RP Threads.jpg
    RP Threads.jpg
    99.9 KB · Views: 187
Well, Rhino plastic is a brittle Polyester resin.
Alumilite is a Urethane.

Strong and brittle vs Less strong but flexible.

:eek:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom