Is it possible to turn plastic

Yes. I've turned countless plastic items. Almost always, I'll use the metal lathe for this. You can use a wood lathe, though. For hard plastics like acrylic, use low/medium rpms, use scrapers only. Go slow and let the scraper do the work. If you rush the plastic will spit off a chip (wear goggles!) Dan

Absolutely. The man-made pen blanks you can buy are mostly plastic. For this size item, you turn them fast, with sharp tools. There is a guy in my turning club who turns a lot of clear acrylic. I'm not sure if he uses scrapers or gouges. I do know that you have to be careful, though, that you don't melt the stuff you're working with by generating too much heat from friction.

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September 11, 2001 - Never Forget

FWIW I've turned several different plastics including acrylic and polyethelene and a white high-density foam used in marine construction. I've also turned stone, dendritic talc and soapstone, bone and antler, soft brass and aluminum, and various "plant ivory" nuts. With all of them I've simply fiddled until I found out what tool worked acceptably, gone slowly, and wore face protection. For the soft metals I found that simply holding a file against the blank worked best but I was always doing very small pieces for use as pulls and such. The soft stones are strictly scraper fodder and _GREAT_ care must be exercised about the mounting methods, and even then you can find cracks in the material which will cause it to fly apart if you spin it too quickly.

You can turn all sorts of materials on a wood lathe with the proper tools and technique.