Trying To Polish Delrin

darkzero said:
Sorry to go off topic but what is HHS? I see a few guys on here refer to HHS in place of HSS. Is that just a different name for HSS that was used in the past? I've never heard HHS until I came here. What does it stand for? I tried searching but only came up with nada.
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It is the Hobby High Speed version. :roflmao:
 
I have tried and tried and the best method I have come up with is do nothing. Get it right the first time with the tool finish and then leave it along. You can fuss around with getting up to very fine emery (like 2K grit) and maybe your favorite metal polish and get a result that might be OK. But it’s too much work and I did not really do any better than a carefully tooled finish. Thank you all, Dave.
 
chips&more said:
I have tried and tried and the best method I have come up with is do nothing. Get it right the first time with the tool finish and then leave it along. You can fuss around with getting up to very fine emery (like 2K grit) and maybe your favorite metal polish and get a result that might be OK. But it’s too much work and I did not really do any better than a carefully tooled finish. Thank you all, Dave.
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just out of curiosity--the black Kiwi shoe polish didn't work--or you didn't try it?---Dave
:thinking:
 
Dave Smith said:
just out of curiosity--the black Kiwi shoe polish didn't work--or you didn't try it?---Dave
:thinking:
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No, did not try shoe polish, interesting idea. Wish I had some of the stuff. I hung up my ties and dress shoes 20 years ago. I only wear tennis shoes now. Don’t need shoe polish for shoes but maybe for Delrin? I will put that idea on my do list, thanks Dave…Dave.
 
Jim, Just heat the acetone in an old saucepan, preferably on an electric plate. It boils at quite low temps (56*C according to wiki) but you dont need to get it that hot. Its the hot vapours that do the work. The ABS just sort of "flows" and creates quite a smooth surface without any tooling required.
JimDawson said:
Uhmmmm, that sounds explosive. Care to elaborate a bit?
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But yeah, safety precautions required

Cheers Phil
 
I just did a bunch of black derlin (50) pieces I quickly dipped each one in acetone pulled them out do not blow on them!!! That will give them white spots due to the moisture have a fan sitting there to dry them quickly about 15 seconds and that was it they all come out perfect nice and shiny. Ray
 
12bolts said:
Jim, Just heat the acetone in an old saucepan, preferably on an electric plate. It boils at quite low temps (56*C according to wiki) but you dont need to get it that hot. Its the hot vapours that do the work. The ABS just sort of "flows" and creates quite a smooth surface without any tooling required.

But yeah, safety precautions required

Cheers Phil
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When I work with acetone, I only do so in a well ventilated area, preferably outside, and make sure there are no ignition sources around. Heating it sounds way too dangerous for me.

Around here every couple of months or so some meth cooker blows up a house or hotel room cooking meth, part of that process involves boiling acetone from what I understand.
:nono:
 
I guess I should make it clear I dipped mine in room temp acetone. That stuff scares the crap out of me when its cold I cannot imagine warming it up. Ray
 
I too have been playing with some black plastic ( yesterday ) that may well be Delrin it turns like a dream .
this is what I feel I have learnt
I needed at least two cutting tools ..one for stripping material off roughly to the basic shape and one for a finer finish .
The rough cutter was a standard RH steel indexed cutting tool , the finish was like a fine screw thread
when In purchased my ancient lather there were a few ancient hand forged steel cutters.
One in particular is not unlike the shape of a saxophone in that the cutting end of the tool is belled out a bit & folded back to look like a sax profile . The radius end is ground up so the flat top side tilting slightly back to the shank so you get a sloping cutting surface which when viewed from the top looks a lot like a horseshoe .
I found it was also good at fine cutting and almost polishing aluminium bars as well as smoothing my plastic turnings .

I found the my plastic comes off in a continuous soft feather type turning if it's taken off very thinly and at the right feed /speed , if the index cutter tool is set at a decent angle so the tip cuts a 1/4 inch log cut so long as you put it on a real slow auto feed using a mid range speed it scrapes it very smooth leaving hardly any tooling marks ..
thinking about it the idea of a radius tip might be expanded to as being a slightly flat to the axis say angled by about 1.5 degrees from square the the axis , the cutting edge being straight & up to 3/16 inch wide with each end rounded off , the whole cutter then being stoned on the ground edges to take out any grind stone made groves and also for the top edge to be polished flat as well .
It comes off like a long fine spring if I used the indexed steel cutting tool .
Piccies of the hand made cutter to follow in a few minutes .......... hopefully ....... as we are about to get a new digital electricity meter installed in about 10 minutes .
 
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