**The Art of Machining with Delrin: A Journey of Trial and Error**

As I reflect on my machining journey, I am reminded of the importance of experimentation and perseverance. One of my favorite machining plastics is Delrin, also known as acetyl. This material has proven to be a game-changer in my projects, offering a unique combination of durability, sandability, and ease of use. I can purchase chunks of Delrin on eBay, which makes it an incredibly accessible material for hobbyists and professionals alike.

In this article, I will share with you my experiences with machining Delrin, including the challenges I faced and the techniques I developed to overcome them. From pre-drilling and cutting straight lines to sanding and finishing, I will take you through every step of the process.

**Tolerances and Gap Control**

One of the most critical aspects of machining is determining the optimal tolerance for a project. For this particular duck-shaped pin holder, I wanted to ensure that the pin was releasable if I made it too close to the diameter of the holes. To achieve this, I set my tolerance at point 1-3, which translates to a gap of approximately 0.125 inches (or 1/8 inch) over. While it may seem arbitrary, this tolerance allows for a small amount of camber or wear on the pin, making it easier to release.

I have found that tolerances can be tricky to get right, as it's often easier to remove material than add it back in. However, with experience and practice, I've developed an intuitive sense of how much gap is needed for a particular project. It's not uncommon for me to make mistakes and then adjust my tolerance accordingly.

**Cutting Delrin: A Surprisingly Easy Process**

One of the most surprising aspects of machining Delrin is its ease of use. Unlike other materials, such as nylon, which can be notoriously difficult to cut and sand, Delrin responds beautifully to whippets (a type of cutting saw blade). I've found that pre-drilling the material before cutting it is essential to avoid splitting or cracking.

With a whippet in hand, I can confidently say that cutting Delrin is one of my favorite parts of the machining process. The material sands extremely well, leaving behind a smooth finish that's almost indistinguishable from injection-molded plastic.

**The Bandsaw: A Reliability Tool**

While I've had my fair share of struggles with the bandsaw, it has proven to be a reliable workhorse in my machining arsenal. With practice and patience, I've developed the skills necessary to cut straight lines and smooth curves using this versatile tool.

However, even with experience, the bandsaw can still throw me off when I least expect it. A single misstep or miscalculation can result in a jagged edge or uneven finish. But that's all part of the learning process, and I've learned to appreciate the challenges that come with working with this tool.

**The Final Product: A Duck-Shaped Pin Holder**

And now, finally, we arrive at the finished product – a duck-shaped pin holder that's sure to bring a smile to your face. With its smooth, Delrin exterior and sturdy internal structure, this piece is both functional and visually appealing.

I've added a few personal touches, including a release ring made from a twist drill bit and a small pulley system for easy retraction. The result is a piece that's not only functional but also showcases the beauty of machining with Delrin.

**Conclusion: A Journey of Trial and Error**

Machining with Delrin has been a journey of trial and error, filled with successes and setbacks along the way. Through experimentation, perseverance, and practice, I've developed the skills necessary to work with this remarkable material. Whether you're a seasoned machinist or just starting out, I hope that my experiences will inspire you to try something new and challenging – like machining with Delrin.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enI don't even know where to start on thisone well it's time for a one-day billthat's been too long since we've doneone it has been a long a long time butthese are ducks and flamingos these areducks and flamingos the flamingos are arecent addition here's the thing youmight have noticed because it wentridiculously viral in the tens ofmillions of hits of my duck bomb videosit started out as a vine of a bunch ofthese in a shopping cart and peopledidn't believe that it was real becausethese makin god-awful noiseJim Carrey and dumb and dumber right andthen you mix you mix all these togetherand it sounds like the third level ofDante's hell and again people don'tbelieve this was real as soon as I sawthe vine video I jumped on to a redditthread and found what these were calledand ordered a dozen of them made my ownduck video that went crazy viral I sinceordered some more flamingos I have acouple of two cans on the way but theyhaven't arrived yet but I thought it'stime to talk about the Ducks instead ofjust showing the horrible noise thatthey make I like where this is going sowhat are we're gonna make a duck bombwe're gonna we're gonna make a duck bombbut first I would like to introduce theworld to this product which is called asquawkie-talkie okay it's a dog toy squaw kie Toki I found mine on Amazon Iactually think I ordered the originaldoesn't from the company that makesthese I can't remember the name of thatwebsite but it's not hard to findsquawkie-talkie google it should find itthe weird thing is the squeaker is waydown in the neck the squeaker is in theneck and it's negative pressure right sothe dog bites on and it doesn't makesense release it that would destroy mydog so you need to do this I think thisis a great crib toy for a babywell you know the joke has always untilthere are two dog toys and kid toys arethe same it's just ones meat flavor andones baby flavors so I made a duck bomband it was basically this this holdsabout a dozen of these these are I thinkactually albatrosses and these areflamingos but we call them ducks theylook ducky to me all right so this wasmy first duck mom very very simple theyline up all in a row you pull this outthey all make their sound but I wantlonger sound and so I have a differentin mind for another duck mom okay let'sokay the thing is is that when they yeahI don't want to reveal them yet but whenthey're all like this sometimes theirweight on top of each other can keepthem from going on long enough so I haveyou determined by thinking about it butthe best way to actually release theirsound is this while they're hanging fromtheir feet so you're saying we have toget the ducks in a row do we do and I'vegot some chute cord here I want to tie Iwant to tie chute cord from their feetwith about a 1 foot tail I want togather them all together we're gonnahang them and I'm gonna build aframework around them that holds thembut the framework will also hold somehinges like this so that basically onepin released will release the the sheatharound the the Ducks and they'll allmake the longest possible noise so youso in order to get the most majesticsound or most annoying or just the mostok the most the mellitus I think weshould just start building okay so I'mgonna say how many do we have here 2 4 68 10 12 14 16 are you gonna leave roomfor future expansion no I'm gonna lookif I order some more I'll make a biggerbump I'll make a bigger one Shing let'stry that now what is the best way to tiethis clove hitch um I think maybe alittle overhand oh wait let's try thisor you could do two half hitches andthen cinch it down I'm actually thinkingof a loop like this and a loop like thisand then do you need both feet or justone oh I want both because he looksbetter funny early yeah okay that's it'sfunnier okay so I'm gonna cut 16 ofthese five six seven oh oh oh oh oh doit in both sides hmm do it in both sidesis what I'm saying because right on theother end as we get to we get to heryeah that's greatso just overlap about two inches andthen tie yourself a little overhand loopknot I normally hate the overhand butfor this it's fine if I talked aboutknots before I haven't booked on knotsthat says that the overhand knot isresponsible for more lost lives andproperty than any other knot in historyreally that's interesting that's anuntestable claim it is an untestableclaim all right yeah see that's greatthis is that's ideal we should do a aknot primer we should because there'slike five nuts that I use three knotsthat I use for almost everything Bowlinsquare knot and then other Bowl andsquare knot figure eight yeah okay thereyou go that's another two down it's kindof a topologically weird not how so wellbecause it's you've got loop that arelooping in on each other all you got todo is this I know you got to pull itthroughyeah all right I'm just saying like theI don't know somebody who's better atmath can tell us not to apology nottopology is a very very interestingbranch of mathematics knots very quicklyget into the realm of the incalculablereally yeah in terms of the number ofpossibilities within a knot and ways inwhich a line can twist itself it'sapparently diabolical are we keepinglike yes with each other and likeespecially since these flamingos haveworse feet for tying than thealbatrosses yes we have an odd number wecan't we counted 16 you know I mean theodd number of 305 flamingos alright soyou're gonna have to yeah that's finethatthis is this is gonna be like theroommate Frank of 2016 come on well I'mwaiting I'm going as fast as I canI'm trying as fast as I can captainwhat's that tapping I hear rap raprapping this on my chamber door okayI've got your last two ducts so allright now I want you to hold Oh what welost one flamingo down oh oh oh it'sfrom your wrist recent well nice that wecan apply blame so quickly yes onlythere was video proof okayhold those got it got it yeah these aresurprisingly heavy yeah no I rely no andthis one is too long what does that onego to see there you go you got itokay here yep better okay better evenedout trying to get them all kind ofaligned oh thank you wait pitch thatpitch like oh all right now good we'vegot these guys they're hanging thingslook pretty good let's make sure they'reall evened up and tight okay so you'dmake an amazing punching bag out ofthese all right now we're starting toloosen now baby snakes now I need tobuild a structure a duck breast a duckpress yes all rightwe need to make a measurement so here'swhat I'm gonna do now we're not gonnalet you hear the sound of this just yetbecause we want to surprise you withthis but I'm gonna squeeze these astight as I can and you're gonna thenreach around and measure how wide theDucks are okay all right here we gookayI got I got a finger on the spot okayyeah arms the way so you let go okaydon't listen whatever you do sound cutsout nowyoushe never saw Dino never stops Oh carry8 inches 38 inches so we need that's itthat's a that's a wide waisted duck bombit is it is okay so 38 inches I'm goingto need to pull out my table saw and cutsome wood to size and then we're goingto cut so let's see if we have 38 inches38 divided by 2 is 19 19 divided by 2 is9 and 1/2 27 and 1/2 that's all rightnope 1928 in half let's see is thatenough1 2 3 4 no let's do let's do 6 panelsit's gonna be a six and a third six anda third well done and I'm just gonna do6 because I'm gonna assume that I canget it tighter wood 6 yeah so I'm gonnabuild a hinge six inches okay let'slet's talk through this okay we're youwant to do six panels six panels thatare gonna be about six inches tall so6x6 joined by hinges okay with abasically two holes that join with a pinthat goes through those hold the pin itreleases release the duct pop okay allright that sounds simple okaynow I'm doing it like this so this isthe insideokay so hinge up yeah don't lose any ofthese screws because I only have exactly30 which is how many I'm good to knowguess what I'm about to not doright now the first time we showedsomebody using an impact everywhere thesleeves untested see how theyimmediately accused us all of roundingup out every screw that we used becauseof the sound the impact driver rightmakes and then the fact that itdisappears down in the sleeve as youdrive it in yes yeah so the hinge is alllook good but on their backside wellthey're all a little bit what we wouldcall proud that means they're stickingout so I'm going to grind these down onmy disk Centernow there is a there's a genuine dangerwhen doing that that sparks can go downin there and actually set your sawduston fireso I'll watch for smoke yeahnow the question is for the pin itselfso let's see hereroughly actually almost like what I wantto do is something like that somethingthat's just the friction is holding iton yeah right because then you cangather around and go chunk but I'mworried that if the angle here changesthat's a problem you just do one ofthose little finger latches with the eyeyeah no I certainly could but againunder pressure it's gonna be hard toundo it how much pressure is it it'sgonna be right it's you're gonna besurprised okay here let's absolutelyview here let me do this so we can pushthis over turn this around we can getmuch tighter I think we can lose a wholepanel I'm gonna try the Flamingo withjust one leg sure so I think that mightgo a little better you can always hotglue - all right now it's a Pentagon youknow what I am gonna do it this way yeahlike that right okay yeah uh-huh yeah sohere's what we're gonna do we're gonnado this what's the plan here Adam wellso I want to pin to release the twohalves of the duct Goethe have some thathave knots the duct turtle I'm not evengonna respond that's progress and I'mgonna make the pinso I've got 1/2 inch hole I'm gonna laythis 3/4 inch piece of this is one of myfavorite machining plastics it's calledDelrin or acetyl you can buy chunks ofthis on eBay and it's fantastic it cansand it can drill it's easy to latheit's a really nice machining size it'sreally sturdy too and it doesn't gall uplike nylon does I don't like nylon as amachining plastic so I have tons andtons of Delrin it's one of my favoritematerials okalright here we go let's see and I wantto take off a quarter inch which is0.125 1/8 of an inch over yeah point 1to 5 and I'm going to go a little bit alittle more than that so I'm gonna gopoint 1 1 3 so how do you know what yourtolerances should be is this justsomething you learn over time whenyou're doing this stuff yeah how muchgap you want yeah so for something likethis it's going to be I've got twopieces of wood two holes that are gonnajoin over themselves I'm gonna put a pinbetween themI want that pin to be releasable if Imake my pin too close to the diameter ofthe holes my tolerance is so close thatany bit of camber is gonna make itreally hard to pull that pin out so Iwant some slop in there I don't want itto be exactly 1/2 inch I want it lessthan that and yeah you get an intuitivefeel for where you want a higher orlower tolerance it always take more offlater but it's hard to put more back onexactly so I'm gonna 1 to 5 I'm gonna goone to 75 and try thatthis stuff is workable enough you don'thave to work multiple passes that'sawesome yeah no it's really really softand one of the things I love about eBayfor shop supplies is that people selllittle chunks of this stuff if you orderfrom a manufacturer you often have tobuy minimum sizes but it's kind ofexpensive in knots crap yesalright now let's try that outnice alright so long enoughyep long enough ok I'm going to cut thisdownas you can see the acetalit just Sands really beautifully and youend up with really nice-looking partslike that it looks like it was injectionmolded almost yeah that's greatawesome here we gohow many years did it take you to beable to cut a straight line on thebandsaw oh I still can't quite cut astraight line on the bandsaw it's justwhatever is mostly needed as usual withwhippets I'm going to pre-drill nicethat's not going anywheregood no splitting no nothing that wasgreat all right so now this over tothere look it's all coming together welloh that looks good okay so the market oryou want to I'm just gonna hold ittightly because I'm a daredevil and Ilike living on the edgeso that's good nice yesokay so twink we've got a crossbar inthereyou know actually you're right acrossbar would be perfect in that yeahyou know where you can do a little cordlittle half-inch like a pull cord I liketo pull cords better okay that that willbe my release ringnice that's itI go all the way through good good goodyep a pair of nooses for the release pinokay this is the silliest thing we'vebuilt to date including the beaver boxoh this is the most ridiculous thingeverI'm going to push this around the Ducksand you're gonna put the pin in okaywait is it on the top yep pin pin pinthat's it ladies and gentlemen yes theduck Bob Wow she's ready look at thatit's so majestic that is just beautifulhold I'm going to move this back so ithas real room to enjoy this this this iswithout a doubt the most absurd one daybuilt we've ever achieved including allthe way through yeah no doubt over theyears we've been doing this this iscrazy us go ahead okay go on a job trackaround 16 squawkie-talkieall at once are you gonna do thecountdown yeah you want to do it no youcan do it okay here we goin five four three two oneyes high fives all arounddice toms are us ladies and gentlemenhey I will have more duck bombs andother stuff untested I think we shouldfinish this up hang it up and maybedecorate absolutely I think this is thenext big dorm prank I'm pretty sure andthis is a monstrous thing to bring intoa dorm yeah\n"