carving lucite

[melamine]

i read that you can carve lucite. lucite is a relatively strong plastic. if you had some basic impressioning skills and carving skills, could you copy and carve a key yourself out of lucite?

[JK_the_CJer]

I say its worth a shot

Not sure what advantages carving lucite/acrylic/polycarb/etc.. would have over filing/cutting brass...except for use in really nice cutaways

[melamine]

haha, - well i was going to say, it's super cheap, and you don't need a lot of expensive metal working tools or one of those key stamper-dealies - just (i assume) some basic wood-carving-esque tools (and good carving skills). Unlike those key-stamping tools, carving would let you copy basically any key - even keys for weird locks (abloy, dimple, mortice, handcuffs, etc...) A lot easier to get exact cuts than with metal - And, you wouldn't need to create a mold... as long as you had good spatial abilities. just a thought - maybe i'll give it a go with my housekeys. I just remember when i was younger, our car had a spare plastic key (credit-card sized) to use in emergencies. As long as you were a good carver, it seemed like an interesting application. Anyone remember encyclopedia brown and the wooden key that he carved?

[raimundo]

clear plastic when worked with cutting tools,if its amenable at all to the cutting tools and dosent just fracture or otherwise find some bad outcome.

clear plastic that has been cut with files or whatever will not be transparent anymore on the cut edges,
you could try sanding this smooth, but that may cause a black layer of carborundum dust, that would have to be removed by washing with some detergent I suppose.

cut plastic can be flash shined if it dosent have these impurities on the surface by quickly playing a torch over the near area til the surface flows clear and shiny.

this will be hard to control at first it melts the high points more quickly than the low points so you have to find a way to put a small flash of heat into these low areas. perhaps a metal tube could channel the heat from a torch.

the more heat you use, the deeper the surface flow, and the more unsatisfactory the result, so prepare the best flat surface possible and if you have to flash it with a torch, point the torch up and hold the piece alongside the flame rather than directly in front of it. and keep the piece in motion near the flame, to hold it steady will cause one area to take all the heat.

hope this helps.