lucite?

[lampy]

I went out to the local metal supply house (40 miles away) to restock my supply of metal for future projects. While in town my wife and I stopped in a few second hand and antique shops. While looking through one store I noticed a block of what was labeled lucite, it has yellowed a bit and has a couple small chips and I have no idea what I will use it for other than a paper weight. I remembered seeing a few posts about building lucite engines so I thought I had better buy it, just in case Any one have any ideas? It measures about 3.5" X 4"

 

[Tin Falcon]

well yeah buld an engine out of it . people love see through engines at shows.
Lucy the Lucite engine is a classic .

I also built Seymour a double action oscillator using the plans from my PMR #2

and a see through version of the Mcabe runner I call Claire (french for clear)

It is not metal it will chip if not carefull. it will melt if your tooing gets hot and your drill bit need zero tip rake.
you will need to wet sand 180,320, 400, 600 then polish to get class clear but it can be done.
Tin

 

[stevehuckss396]

Never made an entire engine but I do like to make my ignition parts out of it. See thru distributor cap is handy for seeing when a spark plug is not working. Spark goes everywhere in the cap.

 

[lampy]

Tin, I like the Lucite engines. I'll have to keep those in mind when I get ready to tackle this block. I should be able to get at least 3 tries at it.

 

[Mawitö]

Hi I've seen Lucite and acrylic been used for optics too, here you have a couple of links.

http://www.machinistblog.com/homemade-optical-center-punch/

http://www.gadgetbuilder.com/Coddington.html

 

[Tin Falcon]

yes it does work great for optic I have made the optical ceter punch.I purchased a piece of rod from enco

 

[PerryRT]

There's ALL sorts of plastics out there. With a block that big, it's probably lucite/perspex, but it could be lots of other things - polycarbonate, cheaper sorts of acrylic, even cellulite (unlikely). I suspect the only way to know for sure is to fiddle with bits of it and see how it machines.

I can tell you this from working with lucite in aircraft - it's nasty to drill without the right (specialty) drill bits. 90 degree(?) included angle and a funky flute design. Low speed is better - too hot and it melts.

...and if that block doesn't work out, I was just thinking - you might try a local trophy/award company, if you have one. There's lots of those lucite awards out there - I suspect they screw up engraving them from time to time.

 

[lampy]

The only plastics I've worked with are Lexan and Plexiglass, cutting, drilling and tapping, 3/8" sheets usually. Lexan is much easier to work with ;D
I might have to try a test cut, maybe fly cut one side and see what happens.

 

[Tin Falcon]

Plexiglass perplex and lucite are all the same basic plastic as is corian except corian is solid color and a mixture of solids and liquid when made.

Plexiglass is the Rohm an Haas trade name ICI makes perplex and Dupont developed lucite. Dupont believe sold the production rights of the material to another company that is or became Lucite international.
Dow chemical now owns Rohm and Haas.

Bottom line if you are used to working with plexiglass you should be fine.
Tin