faux ceramic for machining?

[manakawari]

im wondering if anyone is aware of a material, a plastic or resin perhaps , that has a look and feel of ceramic, id like something maybe with some weight to it ( heavier than say acrylic) and something that has a ceramic finish or look...it needs to machine fairly easily and it would be ideal if this material could be polished but a matte finish would work too i guess.

I know there are machinable ceramics but they are seriously cost prohibitive and this material will be used for making fashion hardware and embellishments so it really doesnt need to perform like ceramic, it just needs to feel and look relatively similar to ceramic.

I have heard of some glass filled resins but i have never seen them in person so i dont know if they feel or look anything like ceramic after being machined and polished.

Id love some suggestions

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[awerby]

If it's really fired ceramic, then it will be too hard to machine on your setup. But you could easily machine a slab of unfired ceramic and then fire it. This works best when the clay's at the "leather-hard" stage, about a day after you roll it out. But this isn't a quick process; firing takes more than a day, and you need to let the clay dry thoroughly before doing it, which takes about a week.

Have you tried machining plaster of Paris? You can cast it any shape you want, and it machines pretty easily. It's not expensive (a 50 lb sack costs about $20) and it's fairly resistant to heat. There was a formulation of gypsum plaster that was meant for carving; it's discontinued now, but all it was was plaster and some PVA glue, which held it together somewhat so it made chips rather than dust. That stuff made a mess when carved before it dried, since it stuck to everything, but regular plaster can be carved 24 hours after casting with no ill effects.

[manakawari]

thanks for the reply but im kinda looking for something available in 1/2" sheets..not really wanting to do a whole project of making materials.

[awerby]

You don't want to spend the time it takes to cast your own blanks out of inexpensive material, and you don't want to spend money either. But you want a miracle material that's soft enough to machine on a MDX-40, really cheap, available in 1/2" sheets, with a quick turnaround and impervious to heat. Let us know when you find it, okay?

[manakawari]

not impervious to heat, this is something else that I need, just a plastic that has a more ceramic look and feel as opposed to acrylic that's very plastic and light..i have never milled any of the glass filled resins and plastics so I do not know what their properties are.

I want a better quality material in look and feel as opposed to acrylic, something with a higher quality and more expensive look.

[grg12]

No nice sheets but maybe interesting: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuttlebone since one of uses is jewelery making and is easy to carve.

[aarggh]

Have you tried some of the kitchen benchtop suppliers? There's some places I've seen in OZ here that have benchtop material made out of a Corian type material that has a micro-pebble look to it that is designed to emulate and looks very similar to ceramic material.

cheers, Ian

[grg12]

Soapstone? Newer worked with it - just think it looks good

[manakawari]

now that's promising, I always assumed soapstone got its name because its soft and easy to carve but I have no idea how well it mills or how fine of detail can be achieved...this I will look into further.