Acetal

[Eric Mims]

Anyone ever cut acetal/delrin on their router? Wondering if special bits are needed..

[GJMATHEWS]

Anyone ever cut acetal/delrin on their router? Wondering if special bits are needed..

What is it?

The manufacturer should be able to tell you if special bits are required. Take Corian for example. Best cut with a router and carbide bits. When it was first introduced a fellow by the name of Tom Pinsky took it and ran with it. He is very well off now because of it. Developed a complete line of tools to deal with it.

How would acetal/delrin apply to your industry? Can you make money off of it if you are first to market?

Ask yourself these questions and then ask if yourself if you should get a piece and experiment.

I will Google it tonight and have an answer for you by the New Year.

Best regards,

Guy

[GJMATHEWS]

From what I just read it is resin based. I am willing to bet 25 cents that it can be machined with ordinary router bits ran at low speeds. 6500 rpms and a 1/16 inch end mill is what I cut plexiglass with when making patterns for our lathe operator on our shop bot.

If this can be purshased in sheet form, then yes, it applies to our industry. Cabinets lined with this product would offer high end customers the sanitary kitchens they are craving! If the seams can be fused like Corian, and I bet they can, cabinets could be lined and would be impervious to oil stains and food stains. Not to mention the ease of clean up. Since most cabinet shops are utilizing CNC, then the next step is to precut this product and line the cabinet. Since it is not melamine or thermo-formed particle board, high end customers would be willing to pay in my opinion. Just because it was designed with the auto industry in mind does not mean that we can not use it. I smell money!
Check the link below for more info.

http://www2.dupont.com/Plastics/en_US/Products/Delrin/Delrin.html

[GJMATHEWS]

Some more good reading for those of you who have trouble sleeping!

http://plastics.dupont.com/plastics/pdflit/americas/delrin/230323c.pdf

Night all, snowing here in New York and the driveway will need to be cleared in the A.M. Need my sleep!

[Eric Mims]

thanks Guy for the info. I had a buddy who wanted me to cut a 4"+ lens cap for a large format lens out of the stuff.. but I recommended he use another friend who has access to a lathe.. he cut it down on a lathe. stuff is a type of hard plastic and is quite expensive apparently. I think I would have no trouble cutting it if another small project comes up like that.

[TomM]

Eric,
I've cut delrin on my mill using a 2 flute end mill and a ball nose. Each were 1/2" diameter and cut it about 1000 rpm. It is very hard plastic material. All I needed to do was plundge into it about 1.5 inches. Go slow because it will melt if rpm are to high...
Haven't tried on the CNC yet. I still have a small billet scrap left over.

Acrylic cuts very nicely on the cnc because I made my dust foot with it.

tom