Est. 1998 — 27 years of woodworking knowledge
Turning Trex
Dustmaker Mike
>I was goofing off the other day and had a piece of 2x2 Trex Decking about a foot long, so I figured I could turn it into a Fish Bat, and would never have to worry about it rotten away when it is stored on the boat. I was wondering is there a way to polish it up? It left a rough looking surface I tried sandpaper and then a file but all it did was plug up the paper and the file. Boy is this stuff tough on the cutting edges of tools. Thanks
Re: Turning Trex
Clay Reeves
>Wow! That's quite a different experience than I had with turning Trex. I thought that the waxy plastic content lubricated the cut and made the stuff turn like firm butter. I found it especially useful to use scraping techniques on it. The fact that there was no grain to worry about and the soft smooth cutting action made it a turners dream. Perhaps you got a piece with some metal in it. I did run into some small metal fragments but they were mostly aluminum and didn't bother me too much. The stuff uses recycled plastic though and so it is possible that you may find contaminants in it once in a while. It can be sanded. I usually used about 100 grit to sand as the plastic content tends to clog finer papers and the 100 grit gets a fairly nice surface. You may also have encountered an area of lower density, the manufacturing process seems to leave some poorly compressed areas, mostly toward the centers (like pith in a real log). My favorite tool for the Trex is an Osolnik gouge that is sort of a round nosed scraper and can be used as a scraper or as a gouge interchangeably. It was very efficient for working this material (though I like it for regular woods too). Below is a photo of a trex balustrade turned from 4x4's.
Maybe this isn't Trex
Dustmaker Mike
>I thought it was but maybe not. This stiff is not plastic it is a lot harder now I am going to have to figure out what it is. The stuff is as hard as can be and light. The finished bat is a little over 1" round and could drive 16 penny nails into 2x4s. The inside is course but the outside befored I turned it was smooth. I wonder what it is?
Re: Turning Trex
John in VT
>If it was trex you would've turned off ribbons. It smells like plastic when turned. I made a couple of change dishes for the guys who did my deck. I burnished it to get a shine but it looses the shine after awhile.
John