First Plexiglas Pen Finish Attempt

[William Young]

I tried this for the first time this afternoon and I must say I am extremely pleased. This is the type of finish I have been striving for now for a couple years . High gloss , satin smooth and as far as I have been able to find out it wears as good if not better than a CA finsh.
When I had heard about plexiglas as a finish my first concern was that it would look like plastic and I was told that the opposite is true and it does not resemble a plastic finish at all. Well , I heard right because it is a joy to hold and feel a pen with this finish and it does not have a depth of finish like lacquers or urethanes do which can sometimes give wood a plastic look but it has a higher gloss than a CA finish.
It looks exactly like very highly polished wood in its natural color.

I don't know if this was beginners luck trying this for the first time but I will certainly be trying it again to see if behaves as good on other species of wood as well.
W.Y.

http://pic20.picturetrail.com/VOL1620/1718813/4821935/235039803.jpg

[wisconsinwoodch]

Very good looking pen, Is it a finnish you put on or is it made of plexaglass :) :) :) :)
thewisconsinwoodchuck
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www.wisconsinwoodchuck.com

[William Young]

It is a finish I put on myself on that cherry burl modified slimline.
It is made by dissolving plexiglas in acetone and applying it similar to the way a CA finish is applied.
Not a bad looking pen for a $1.70 kit and free wood.
We are meeting friends for a breakfast outing in the morning and I am giving that pen to one of the people that has given me some free turning wood over the last couple years although that piece of burl came from another friend in USA. He sent me enough for over a dozen pens like that.
W.Y.

[JTTHECLOCKMAN]

Bill

I asked these questions on another site you posted the same results on so if you do not mind repeating them here it would be good. I happened to see that site first and knew you were going to try this. I will ask them here so maybe others can learn too. You mention a few things that seem contridictory to me so maybe you can explain them better. You say it has a higher gloss than CA but has a satiny feel. How is that possible?? Don't follow that one. Also you say it does not have the depth of finish. Not sure what you mean by that because you give an example of poly and lacquer. Lacquer will give you the best depth of color bar none and will not look like plastic which poly can do. The reason is the makeup of the material in that lacquer will intensify wood because it's layers melt into one another as with poly they lay on top of each other and get cloudy with the more layers you add. Not sure what this finish does because it does have acetone in each coat so I am thinking it may melt into each other. I was intrigued when I read this on a pen turning forum so it will be something I will try for sure.

Also to add to the questioning, can you tell us your method of melting and applying?? What type of plexi did you use??? How long did you have to wait to apply??? What are the pitfalls to look for when applying??? How many coats did you apply??? Is there a waiting time between coats??? Thanks for taking a minute to answer some questions and by the way the pen looks great. I hope mine come out half as good as yours have been coming out. One other question did this finish replace the CA finish and was it less smelly???

[JTTHECLOCKMAN]

Boy I am just full of questions tonight ain't I?? But sitting here thinking about what you said Bill about depth do you think or maybe you do this already but how about adding BLO to the wood before you apply the finish to bring that color of the wood out more??? It s the same thing when we scroll a piece, we do not top coat without puting something to pop the grain first.

This question can be answered by anyone that does turning such as pens or bottle stoppers that top coat with CA or any other top coat. I am just warming up too. :)

[William Young]

John.
You mention a few things that seem contridictory to me so maybe you can explain them better. You say it has a higher gloss than CA but has a satiny feel. How is that possible?? Don't follow that one. Also you say it does not have the depth of finish
I guess you have to actually hold it in your hand to experince it. By satiny I mean as smooth as satin. By gloss I mean it has a higher gloss than a pen finished with CA . By depth , I mean that a pen fiished with poly or lacquer has a deeper film finish and it shows like it does (at least on the way I have applied it on many pens) . The Plexiglas doesn't look like a deep thick finish . It looks more like very highly polished wood. I didn't try BLO for accentuation of grain pattern and don't know if it would affect the application of this finish. The wood shows in its natural state and color instead of an altered state.

As far as preparing the liquid , I have already been asked that in the turning board on my Woodworking Friends site so to save me a bunch more typing I will copy and paste it here.
Keep in mind , everything I do and the way I do it is just the way I have progressed so far so I am willing to share what I have accomplished and nothing is written in stone. so I am always open for suggestions.
There are probably more ways to do these sort of things than Heinz has pickles and of course the way that works best for anyone is the best way for them.

Here was my experience so far with the mixture part of it.

It takes several days to prepare it. A clean paint pail works good. I cleaned out an empty quart size Deft lacquer can to be in new condition.
I had some scraps of Plexiglas in my shop from a previous project so I ran the pieces through my band saw to approx 3/8" widths to make it easy to break up . Then I broke those strips up by hand into the bottom of the can. There was about 1.5" depth of broken pieces in there. Then I poured enough acetone on top to cover it by about inch and put the lid back on . Within 24 hours the Plexiglas was a thick crystal clear layer in the bottom and the acetone on top had turned from water thin to like heavy corn syrup. I stirred it all up with a clean large screwdriver because the layer in the bottom was very thick and needed to be moved up into the mix. Then I poured more acetone in and repeated that process for a couple days until it was totally dissolved and I had water clear liquid about the consistency of honey.
From there it is just a case of taking a little of it out at a time as needed and putting it into a smaller dispensing bottle and thinning it down with more acetone to about the same consistency as thin CA.
Then application on the pen is basically the same as applying a CA finish only in more and very thin coats and very quickly one after the other because it cures up in seconds. It is messy if it gets on skin (but not near as bad as CA on skin) so I wore latex gloves.

I probably got lucky with my first application attempt but time will tell on that.

W.Y.

[JTTHECLOCKMAN]

Thanks for taking the time to answer all my questions and i will have to give this a try. I hope others can weigh in on this and maybe someone out there has used this method before and would like to jump in here. If it is beginners luck hope it holds out for you.

[William Young]

John.
I missed this one and probably a few more :o
One other question did this finish replace the CA finish and was it less smelly???
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. . yes it did replace the CA finish completely on this particular type of wood but I have been told that on oily woods it is best to use one base application of CA prior to the Plexiglas finish. I kinda think a good application of acetone on the bare wood should be good enough for the oily wood problem but that is for me to yet find out.
As far as smell goes , a person deosn't want to breath in the fumes when stirring the mixture in the can but as far as applying it, I had my 4" DC pipe up behind the pen and didn't smell a thing. No watery eyes and dizziness and headaches that I often got with CA.
Of course those symtoms vary between different people the same way as alergies to certain woods affect some more than others so it is a trail and error situation to find out what your own system will or will not tolerate.
W.Y.

[PaulD]

Bill, I really like the new finish attempt as did KathyD. Collectively we came up with the same method you described for preparation of the plexiglass although, from your description, it take more prep time then I figured. Never-the-less it appears to be worth a shot. Thanks for sharing. PaulD

[William Young]

Paul.
The jury is still out on whether I am am going to settle on plexi as my finish of choice. It appears that my first attempt was indeed beginners luck because I am having more problems appying it with the last half dozen pens I used it on.
Let us know how you make out with it.
I am still leaning toward the CA/BLO application and may have to use a respirator with the screw on cartridges for chemical use just for the short time that it takes to apply the finish.
W.Y.

[PaulD]

I haven't had a chance to try it yet, although I have assembled what I would need and tracked down more detailed instructions from the Pen Makers Guild. I also chatted about it with one of my regional pen making experts and he expressed similar frustrations with the approach that you described. The lack of conversations about the finish in the various pen making forums suggests that this is far from a mainstream finishing approach. Still, I will give it a try sometime and report in on the experience.