I'm not positive what plastics i used to machine. Getting old and stupid. I remember machining (i think acrylic)blocks for gas manifords for medical devices. I had to keep the speed down, to keep the heat down. Have to use oil, not water as I was once told by a boss I had. I did try that that time and it didn't work. Water just beads up. You have to make sure you always have oil on it or else.
I've machined plastic at several shops, different material and always used oil for lathe, mill and thread. It was crystal clear.










On Tuesday, November 5, 2013 12:26:16 PM UTC-6, 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.



--



Tim Wescott

Wescott Design Services

http://www.wescottdesign.com