Pen Making with plastic blanks

Plastic Blanks
When drilling blanks made with acrylic plastic, you will need to go very slow or the plastic will melt and clog. This could cause the blank to split.The drill bit needs to be very sharp or you may tend to oval the top of the hole. I like to use a twist drill on plastic blanks. A brad point bit is my favorite on wood but on plastic the brad point seems to skate around a lot.

I have switched to epoxy for gluing the brass to the pen blank but gap filling CA glue will work as well.

I sometime use a sander to round the blanks prior to putting them on the lathe. It seems to help a little.

One again when on the lathe, you must use very sharp tools. The sharper the better.
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