experience with delrin

[Don Muirhead]

On Sun, 19 Nov 2000 19:29:02 -0500 (EST) William M. Lockwood-III 
wlockwoo at zoo.uvm.edu wrote:

Anyone have any experience with making bushings?  I have access to a lathe
and I NEED new front subframe bushings.

Can I do this i'd love too.

Bill
--------------------
Bill:

You can machine delrin (acetal) only if you have the proper equipment.  A 
lathe designed and set-up for metal will not work on plastic. One-off's are 
hard to do since derlin bushings are two-part (upper & lower) and the 
mating points must be exact or they will actually produce more friction and 
won't last very long.  Ideally you need access cnc equipment and a 
programmer to do this correctly.

Also acetal comes in different grades, which include Delrin 100, 500, 558 
and AF etc and each grade has its own specific properties and applications. 
 Some will breakdown some will not.  AF contains teflon fibers and in my 
opinion produces a better quieter bushing but it is also more expensive 
than the 500 or 558.  You can buy this stuff in sheets or rods.  Some 
laminate sheets into blocks and turn them, some use rods.

So can you do this?   Sure, go for it but don't expect the immediate 
results to be as good as a firm set up to pump out a gazillion of these as 
day.

Don