Turning Rulon

Nothing much to say about the tooling other than the "sharp, sharp, sharp" thing is deadnuts accurate.

However, WEAR A RESPIRATOR!!!!!!!

The fumes are bad, both for short- and long-term exposures.

Short-term can cause BAD headaches, nausea, burning eyes and a nose that only Rudolfs mom would love.

Long-term can cause a couple kinds of cancers and other never-get-overs.

Luck

Mike

I am in Saint Gobain in California almost daily and can tell you ,all tooling is custom ground ( high speed steel) There are very few inserts used if any. If you need me to ask any question or need an email of a machine shop supervisor let me know.

Regards Daveb

Huh? This stuff is Teflon and rust, as far as I know. Unless you are really going at it in high speed production, you shouldn't be heating it anywhere near the decomposition temperature of Teflon, which is 450 C. Rust doesn't sound that poisonous, although the dust might be nasty.

Is there something else in there?

Jon

Where did you get it from? What sort of stuff are you making?

It has been recommended as the best seal material for Stirling engines, which I've been wanting to do some work on, so I've been keeping my eye open for info on the stuff.

I have machined a fair bit of plain Teflon, however.

Jon

I watch pure teflon being compression molded all day and the only thing that is dangerous is ingesting the raw material , no one wears any protective devices.

After the material is molded it goes into the oven at 500 deg. or so for about 4-6 hrs......I will pay more attention tomorrow.

My customer makes about every type plastic known and I have never heard of anyone getting sick or any long term effects.

I usally spend 20-30 hours a week there doing plc and special machine design as well as the repairs of the cnc equipment.

One side effect of teflon is the "Teflon Flu" which is not nice and takes a few days to get over.

I will check out the rulon in the morning.

Regards

Daveb

Small Parts, Inc., where it costs $$ (but this is a small part of a commercial machine, so it's OK).

We're using it for a sliding bearing.

I watched it being made today.....no rust, however some Rulon has bronze in it. This makes sense for a bearing surface.

This product is only made by Saint Gobain and there are quite a few variations of it.

There is no danger associated with this material except when it's heated like you say and then only minor complications.

If you need any specific information about Rulon let me know.

Regards

Regards Daveb

Sorry...I was being a little flip as to the long term effects...shouldn't have done it, but I did...sorry.

The short term effects, however, I'l stand by what I said.

Mike

That's a hansom offer. I appreciate it and I'll take you up on it if I need to.

At the moment what I've learned here, and the fact that our application isn't terribly critical, should let us be effective with the stuff for the time being.

After all, if a systems engineer whose only an amateur machinist can do a good enough job with it, how challenging can the job be?

Thanks, didn't know they carried it. I'd be using it in small quantites, too, to make piston rings and rod seals for a Stirling engine. I'm planning on making a larger, high-temp Stirling engine, and need some durable seals that can run dry. Rulon was one of the most widely recommended materials. Now, I see there are a bunch of different formulas available.

Jon