Acrylics, Part Deux

So, in need of additional inventory (read: I needed to make at least one more pen, as a gift for a friend on the 4th of July), I decided to finally attack the acrylic pen blank that I long ago cut and drilled. I looked up some tips on how to deal with acrylics, and people seemed to think that wet sanding the acrylics and using light pressure when sanding would make a lot of difference. For one thing, the wet sanding and the lack of pressure would keep heat from building up, and heat is the #1 thing to look out for when working with acrylics, since the plastic can bubble up and rip. This is what happened with my first try with acrylics.

I turned the pen differently this time around. I used much more of the roughing gouge, and a lot less of the skew chisel. With wood, the skew chisel can save a lot of time and effort. With acrylics, the skew chisel creates spinning loops of plastic that then have to be removed from the lathe.

Then came the sanding: I had never done any wet sanding before. I looked up how to do it, and the instructions seemed fairly simple: Fill a small bowl with water, and put a couple of drops of dish detergent in it. Then dip the sandpaper in the water before using it on the acrylic. I wet-sanded for the 150 grit and the 320 grit, and the results seemed to be a lot better than my first try. What was coming off on the sandpaper was a kind of mud (a slurry would be the technical term, I suppose), and the heat was not building up. The wet sanding took a lot longer due to the lighter pressure, but it seemed to be worth it. I even wet-sanded for the first piece of MicroMesh (1500 grit), but after that I figured light dry-sanding would work just as well.

And it did! I finished with the MicroMesh and polish, and put together the pen:



I am using the picture with the flash, since it shows better the shiny aspects of the pen. I think this will be a cool addition to my inventory, if only for a couple of days. Of course, once my wife saw this one, she said that she wanted a red one. So, I guess my days of working with acrylics are not over.

This one seemed less of a pain to do, but I still think I enjoy working with the wood more.