Good info on UHMW - what about phenolic?

[Robatoy]

I have installed 3/4" Corian as partitions. Can be refinished, impervious to acidic fluids, easy to clean. Mind you, the installations were in a community college, so the abuse was somewhat less than the abuse younger, more energetic little snowflakes seem to impart on shithouses. No more pricey, at the time, than phenolic. I'm not even sure DuPont makes 3/4" anymore. I also installed some smaller partitions at a Holiday Inn. The were

1/2" material and were installed between urinals. Colour matched to a series of 4-bowl vanities. Looked great years later.

[J. Clarke]

I'd rather "meet" a syphilitic porcupine.

[surplusdealdude]

absolutely beautiful stuff, if you can afford it. (Runs around $200 square foot for a 3/8" thick piece.)

I am looking into the possibility of carrying phenolic in my store online, but only if I don't have to cut it. One of my suppliers for the other materials has Phenolic cut-offs, but I don't know how much, what size, yada, yada yet and I'm up to my ears in other stuff to do right now.

I would suggest a really good alternative is Delrin, which I do carry. It's rigid, as slippery as UHMW, and pretty easy to shape.

Another good alternative would by Nylon, although it's a bit more difficult to work. You have to slow your saw down a bit and there's a danger of chipping the material instead of cutting it, so use very sharp bits, but it's within the range of workability for any home shop. Oil-filled Nylons, like Nylon 6, Nylon GSM, are just about as slippery as Phenolic.

A last alternative is Acrylic or Lexan. If you go to a thickness of about 1/4", it's reasonably rigid, and cuts quite well ( especially Lexan). You can usually find it fairly cheaply at any plastics supply store ( I don't carry it for online sales because I can't get a regular enough supply for my wholesale market yet, but I'm working on it)

[SBH]

Good idea and thanks for the tip. I went to a BBB today and tested the bendability of small cutting boards. I found the Bamboo board to be the strongest, therefore, made the purchase. Now, I'll experiment with it in my table.

[Jigs-n-Fixtures]

For inserts, etc., a polycarbonate such as "lexan" is a very good alternative. You can usually get scraps from sign shops if you live in a decent sized city.

And, the solid surface counter top materials, such as corian, also work well. But, they are a bit more brittle than the polycarbs.

[Jay Giuliani]

Thanks,

I liked it because it was cheap.

I probably went thicker (about 7/16") than I needed but was also worried about flex. I am not sure that is an issue though baseed on the amount of deflection you actually would get on the small surface area of an insert with the work piece sliding across and not held down with much pressure. I can't imagine it would be noticeable.

I don't have a full size table saw due to space constraints, just a portable contractors saw I do most of my edge work on a router tghat is built into the top of my workbench..

I typically don't like working with the harder plastic or resin products because the dust gets everywhere and my main shop is in the house. I am only banished to the garage for finishing.

I bet the bamboo will look nice.