How to flame polish an acrylic duck call barrel

Jan 8th, 2011 | By | Category: News, Shop Talk

Flame polishing an acrylic duck call barrel will produce a finish similar to glass or crystal.  However, this process does require practice and I recommend using your defective duck call barrels for this.  My greatest challenge was to find the speed at which I would move the mini torch flame across the outside and the inside of the barrel.  Here is what worked best for me:

As you will notice in the video below, I used The Little Torch by Smith and started on the end of the duck call barrel closest to the lathe headstock/4 jaw chuck.  I held the torch tip just close enough so that the blue tip of the flame touched the duck call barrel.  Once I started, I continued to the end of the barrel using a steady and constant speed.  I then barely touched the torch tip to the end of the barrel in order to polish it and then proceeded to polish the inside, again using a steady and constant speed.

I have also included a picture of an acrylic duck call barrel after it was flame polished.  Again, the video tutorial below shows the entire acrylic flame polishing process.  More information regarding The Little Torch by Smith can be viewed in our “Tool Discussions” section.

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