"Tim Wescott" wrote in message
...
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?


Use an exceptionally sharp tool with a large nose radius and a material
removal rate that produces a continuous chip.

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".

Flame polish the edge while it's still spinning in the lathe.

Or use Mcguire's.

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.


Polycarbonate (lexan) is much "tougher" and behaves a lot more more like a
metallic alloy than acrylic (plexiglas) which has mehanical properties
that're more similar to a glass.