TonyBal
Member
Who here has turned the clear "Circuit Board" pen blanks. What is the deal? Talk about a chip-out fest. I thought that I had ruined it after the first few passes. I turned off the lathe to look at my progress and said WTF ("Why The Face", yeah right). It looked like someone went crazy on it with an ice pick. I had "successfully" turned 10 other acrylic pens the day before & thought I had it down. I guess not all acrylics turn the same. I had noticed some minor differences between the other acrylics, but nothing like this. I turned the lathe down to my slowest speed (500 rpm), re-sharpened by pen gouge, & very slowly & meticulously went back to work. I was finally able to get some ribbons flying instead of chips, but there seemed to be a couple of areas that were not going to slice no matter how careful I was. I stopped about 1/16" before getting to the bushing & sanded the rest of the way there out of fear. I had only two of the kits & I needed both pens the next day for my wife's bosses so I wasn't about to risk it. To be honest, I only used sand paper on the second one since I "almost" ruined the first one. 5 minutes & 60 grit sandpaper & it was ready for finishing. How embarrassing. I hated to do it like that but I did not want to risk it. Plus those kits cost over $20 each. Ouch! Anyway, the final product turned out awesome. The clear acrylic was totally transparent when I was finished. I was very happy with both of them. If anybody has any suggestions on how to actually turn these bad boyz I would sure like know. Thanks.:smile-big: