Synthetic Decking Material as a Pen Blank ??

[magpens]

My next-door neighbor is replacing the deck in his back yard, near his swimming pool.
He intends to use the deck as an outdoor entertainment area.
The structure he's building, complete with roof having several peaks, is large .... I estimate 350 sq. feet floor area under roof plus more outside.
The 8 wood pillars are 8" x 8" and the beams are 4" x 12". . The roof is covered in tongue & groove cedar and is awaiting the cedar shakes.
Each pillar is supported by a cylindrical concrete post, about 14" in diameter, and cast in place, extending down to "solid footing", I am told.

I call this building "The Colosseum" ! . I am told it will house a large BBQ, a bar, 2 fridges, a large-screen TV and stereo, plus a sink and cupboards. . The owner claims to not know yet whether the walls will be open or filled in. . There will be a large seating/lounging area with appropriate furniture.

Work has begun on the floor. . The previous deck had no roof and has rotted, not catastrophically so it's capable of supporting workmen's weight.

Anyway, the new floor material is synthetic, with "planks" about 6" wide by about 10-12' long .... each plank seems to be a solid synthetic material and is covered with a brown vinyl wrap which has a wood-grain pattern .... probably quite durable in our West Coast Marine climate ( before "Climate Change" !! ) The core of each plank is a solid synthetic material, the color of army khaki (approximately).

Anyway, anyway ..... does anyone know the trade name for that flooring material, please ? . . I am just curious to know the name.

A scrap of that material just happened to fly over the fence and was big enough to cut up into pen blanks.
I turned a piece tonight into a rod about 0.8" in diameter and 6" long, and bored a 3/8" axial hole.
This material seems to machine quite well on my lathe with carbide tooling.

Has anyone tried to make a pen from it ? . Glue might not stick to it because of its synthetic composition. . And the color is not that attractive.
But otherwise, it would seem to be structurally OK for a pen. . . I know that people have made pens from synthetic sewer pipes.

Mainly, I am interested in the trade name of this material, in its form as a plank for decks, and also the "chemical" name of the "composite" core.

Thanks for any help !

 

[lorbay]

My next-door neighbor is replacing the deck in his back yard, near his swimming pool.
He intends to use the deck as an outdoor entertainment area.
The structure he's building, complete with roof having several peaks, is large .... I estimate 350 sq. feet floor area under roof plus more outside.
The 8 wood pillars are 8" x 8" and the beams are 4" x 12". . The roof is covered in tongue & groove cedar and is awaiting the cedar shakes.
Each pillar is supported by a cylindrical concrete post, about 14" in diameter, and cast in place, extending down to "solid footing", I am told.

I call this building "The Colosseum" ! . I am told it will house a large BBQ, a bar, 2 fridges, a large-screen TV and stereo, plus a sink and cupboards. . The owner claims to not know yet whether the walls will be open or filled in. . There will be a large seating/lounging area with appropriate furniture.

Work has begun on the floor. . The previous deck had no roof and has rotted, not catastrophically so it's capable of supporting workmen's weight.

Anyway, the new floor material is synthetic, with "planks" about 6" wide by about 10-12' long .... each plank seems to be a solid synthetic material and is covered with a brown vinyl wrap which has a wood-grain pattern .... probably quite durable in our West Coast Marine climate ( before "Climate Change" !! ) The core of each plank is a solid synthetic material, the color of army khaki (approximately).

Anyway, anyway ..... does anyone know the trade name for that flooring material, please ? . . I am just curious to know the name.

A scrap of that material just happened to fly over the fence and was big enough to cut up into pen blanks.
I turned a piece tonight into a rod about 0.8" in diameter and 6" long, and bored a 3/8" axial hole.
This material seems to machine quite well on my lathe with carbide tooling.

Has anyone tried to make a pen from it ? . Glue might not stick to it because of its synthetic composition. . And the color is not that attractive.
But otherwise, it would seem to be structurally OK for a pen. . . I know that people have made pens from synthetic sewer pipes.

Mainly, I am interested in the trade name of this material, in its form as a plank for decks, and also the "chemical" name of the "composite" core.

Thanks for any help !

Yes I have made a few from it. It seems really hard on tools and actually doesn't look that great. Sewer pipes being a solid colour are a bit boring but look way nicer.
Lin

 

[Mr Vic]

One name is TREX which is a high end brand name. You might ask the workers for brand they're using. Bland they are. Make great shop pencils. Don't crack or chip when they roll of your work bench.

 

[Curly]

I did our deck with a PCV product called Fiberon. I haven't tried making a pen with it though. I can send you some blanks cut from it it you want. Colour will be grey.

 

[MRDucks2]

I have turned some TREX pieces with HSS. Turns fine and certainly looks different (it has a fiber looking structure to it) but did not seem very appealing.

 

[monophoto]

Our deck is made from Trex (a blend of recycled milk bottles and sawdust), and I saved some of the scraps. It turns well with ordinary tools, but as others have noted its pretty bland. It's denser than wood, so whatever you make from it will be heavier than a wooden equivalent. Polyurethane glue adheres to it reasonably well.

That said, if you can grab a few scraps, it's useful to have around for special applications because it's plastic heritage means that its impervious to moisture. I've used it to make a dowel to reinforce a repair in the decorative horizontal crossmember of a lamp post. Also, I need to make a couple of handrails for the steps leading up from our garage after my wife broke her hip; I used ordinary 2x4 construction pine, but put small blocks of the Trex material where the verticals sat on the concrete floor to prevent moisture from wicking up through the concrete and into the pine.

 

[J_B]

Yes, I have made a couple of cigar pens using the Trex board left overs from when our deck was built. I gave a couple of them to our handy man and his helper as xmas gifts. He loved it because I used the copper cigar kit to mimic copper pipe. It turned like butter and I just did a sanding sealer on it then a friction polish. Granted not the most beautiful pen, but for our handy man he brags he still uses it daily and that was 7yrs ago.

 

[magpens]

@Curly

I did our deck with a PCV product called Fiberon. I haven't tried making a pen with it though. I can send you some blanks cut from it it you want. Colour will be grey.

Thanks for the offer, Pete. . . But for now, I am OK with what I have for experimentation ..... scraps from the next door construction.
I am not sure, but I think this product name is TimberTech. . It seems to be army khaki in colour but after turning/exposure maybe its grey ! . It does seem to change after the brown vinyl shroud is stripped off during turning, leaving just the core material exposed to view.
There seem to be two types of boards ..... one type of board has longitudinal holes about 1/2" diameter, maybe 5 such holes per board and the holes run the full length of the 12' board. . The other board type is solid and each board has an L-shaped groove ... presumably for anchoring without putting screws through it ... not sure because I haven't been close enough when it was being fixed in position.