Yvette had some great new ideas for a line of earrings that she will debuting later this year. They involved utilizing some acrylic pen blanks that I purchased some time ago that were collecting dust in my parents basement. I tend to shy away from using acrylic just because of the terrible smelling fumes that are released from working with it especially when laser cutting acrylic. I have been told my numerous people that the smell of burning acrylic is unpleasant, but not harmful.
But I digress, I began creating some prototypes for Yvette by starting on the Delta wood lathe in a four jaw self centering chuck. I could have done all this on the Southbend lathe, but I hate centering with a four jaw independent chuck that I just turned the acrylic down to a concentric circle, then switching over to the Southbend.
I first roughed the acrylic down to the target dimensions and cleaned up any cut marks with fine sandpaper and a little bit of Colgate toothpaste. My Dad taught me to use a little bit of toothpaste to clean up the edges of acrylic whenever he would laser cut anything, and I figure turning is no different.
Nice and shiny!
I then proceeded to run a forstner bit down (after center drilling of course) roughly 1/8" to make sort of a cup shape.
Once my counter bore was deep enough, I switched my tool bits to a cut off tool and parted my finished piece favoring the drop. That way I was able to have a nice parallel cut that wouldn't leave an extra little "nipple"of material that would need to be removed in a subsequent operation.
All done turning the blue pen blank. I just love how this translucent blue looks. I am sure that they will make beautiful earrings when all is said and done.
Ill let you just wait and see to show you what Yvette has planned for these little cups, stay tuned!
I can't wait to show you all!
Comments
Post a Comment