I just finshed turning down my first acrylic acetate seat insert. How do you go about polishing it?

Thanks,
Steve

Sand through at least 400 grit (SIC), 600 and 800 are even better. Then buff on a loose cotton wheel with common Dico blue (plastic) polish. It'll shine like glass.

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I have also used the micro sanding sheets from woodcraft and have had the pens I make turn out very sharp.

Steve,
Very interested in where you're getting acrylic big enough for rod work????

Mike (Southgate, MI)
If I don't want to, I don't have to and nobody can make me (except my wife) cuz I'm RETIRED!!

Mike,
It's the 3/4 x 3/4 pen blanks from Arizona Silhouette. I turned one down this morning and it looks like it will fit a #16 & #17 skeleton seat. But you have to make sure you center bore it perfectly and as soon as you get it turned to round you gotta stop. At that point you have very little room for error. Other than that, probably all you can do is make checks and inserts for buttcaps. I saw Tom make a new finger grip on a fly reel. Anything less than 3/4 x 3/4 inches. I wish they'd make them larger. I talked to the guy who makes them and he said it would cost an excess of $2000 per color to upgrade the machinery to make larger stock.

when it is still on the lathe just use the hut plastic polish. it does a fantastic job. i will try to post some next week that i have done with the small pen blanks and made them 16 or 17mm seat inserts. they are fun, but take it slow until you get used to turning them

Hi John,
I went really slow with it. Ya can't take big bites out of them. Looking forward to seeing the pics.

Thanks,
Steve

I've been wanting to try lucite...anyone tried it? Found something that looks a bit bigger than pen blanks at [www.pipemakers.org] but 1st order is $100 minimum, more than I wanna spend on something just tor try it.

Steve,

You'd better flout Andrea and email and check the size on the Lucite blocks. I'm pretty sure they're only 3/4 X 3/4. Buy, they do come in pretty long lengths. So if you had to you could epoxy 4 together to get what you needed.

Bill in WV

Lucite/perspex/plexiglass rods of larger sizes can usually be obtained locally through industrial plactic suppliers. My local supplier, for example has rods up to 1" in stock. Larger sizes and black colour rods are special order. For turning, you want to use cast rods, not extruded.

Jan