You might try www.mcmaster.com as an alternate to mscdirect. They have good
descriptions of all the plastics.

As far as choice of plastic, they'll all work. They mostly tend to catch a
little more than steel in the lathe -- more like copper, but you should have
no problem on a metal lathe. On a wood lathe, I suspect you'll have to be
very careful with tool angle -- closer to a scrape than a cut, but I'm not
sure as I haven't used a wood lathe in years -- you get lazy with a metal
lathe in house -- just set it up and go, even in wood.

Go with black (this is a little counter-intuitive as the black soaks up the
IR and gets hotter, but it keeps the UV out of the material).

If you need to glue it, pay attention, 'cause some of these don't like
gluing, especially HDPE.


--
Jim Woodward
www.mvFintry.com


..
"Geoffrey W. Schultz" wrote in message
. 16...
I have a KISS wind generator that develops vibration at certain wind
speeds. The problem is that there's a PVC fitting that goes over a 2"
stainless schedule 40 support pipe that is loose fitting. I want to
machine one with a sleeve bearing on a lathe and make it out of plastic.
However, I really don't have any experience machining plastic, I've been
looking at www.mscdirect.com under Raw Materials/Plastic Material/Rods for
3" material. To keep costs under control I'm looking at the following:

Nylon
Acetal
UHMW
LDPE
HDPE

Comments on the machining qualities, UV resistance, and overall strength
of
these would be greatly appreciated.

-- Geoff