I have in the past made quite a few pens/pencils using Corian (several hundred) limited to the classic "slimline" style. Standard Corian comes 1/2" thick which limits the diameter pen barrels that can be turned.
I have a good friend who owns an home appliance business along with a Corian counter top operation. He mentioned to me the other day a Home Improvement show is upcoming this Spring at the large Civic Center here. He wanted to know if I would make some Corian pens to sell at his display there (something to keep his Son busy during the show). He mentioned it would be nice if I could make some larger style pens from Corian along with some other products like bottle stoppers, toothpick holder key rings, etc.
The immediate problem I saw with doing that was being able to laminate ½" thick material so as to have an invisible seam. Last week I picked up an enormous amount of material from his "scrap" pile - lots of different colors.
Yesterday I decided to attack this by experimenting with various adhesives. I quickly discovered the adhesive his shop guys use which is basically a 2 part colored epoxy (to match the Corian) does a great job in adhering the material but did not create an invisible seam mainly because of it's viscosity.
I also tried polyurethane glue, gel CA and thin CA. making some pen blanks and drilling for the tubes. Since a seam intersects the drilled hole, some blowouts occured during the drilling process.
I finally developed a technique to build up blanks using thin CA glue which resulted in blanks which withstood the drilling process and also resulted in a virtual invisible seam even when using a magnifying glass.
I plan to try some different colored Corian this afternoon to see if I can fine tune this process to create usable blanks of varying colors with invisible seams. I may try some other adhesives also.
The photo below shows a Flat Top American pen I made from one of the blanks along with a slimline pencil I had made previously. The larger pen sure does look good - photo does not do justice to it.
The saga continues later today - will report results.
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