Machining clear plastic and keeping it that way
On 11/5/13, 10:26 AM, Tim Wescott wrote:
I was going to say "acrylic", but then I realized that maybe I would be
narrowing it down too much.
How hard is it to machine a part out of hard clear plastic and then make
it clear again? Any gotchas? What plastic should one start with? What
question am I failing to ask?
The part will be cylindrically symmetric (i.e., turned on a lathe), about
1.5" diameter, 0.5" tall, and accuracy can be as sloppy as 0.01 in all
directions. But it would need to be "pretty".
Some plastic that is a bit more rugged in impact than acrylic would be
nice (do they make crystal clear Delrin?) but I can't think of anything
like that which would actually work in this case.
I really have no plastics experience, but once saw some guy cleaning up
(what I think was) plexiglass edges with a propane torch.
It was obvious he'd had a lot of experience doing so, as they came out
smooth, transparent and magically perfect like... he said they called
it 'flame polishing'
Just did a YouTube search and got a bunch of hits, but on time to watch
any now.
BTW, there is a polymer newsgroup... though the time or two I looked
there was nothing but Crickets chirping there.
Good Luck!
Erik
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