What is the best way to surface plane Corian?

[kristenanne77]

I am looking for tips on the best way to surface plane corian before working on a lithophane... Or is it even necessary if you do a rough cut first and then a final cut.
What settings and bits are used. Also , how do you clamp the corian so that the entire piece is planed evenly?
Planing the entire surface would give the greatest area to work from .....
Or do you just give up planing area around the edges due to interference from the of clamps holding the piece down at the surface.
(I do not have the fancy vacuum suction types of machine that hold pieces down without clamps)

Thanks
K

[Adrian]

Whenever I plane off planks etc on my machine I don't clamp them down. I just use packing pieces underneath any large voids and put stops that are thinner than the material around the edges to stop any movement in a horizontal plane. Once one side is planed I flip it over and dispense with the packing pieces. All the pressure when planing is downwards so I've never found the need to clamp the piece down to the board and I've done literally hundreds of oak and beech boards in that way.

For something like Corian where you're only going to be planing to reduce the thickness for a lithopane it's a lot simpler as there's no packing needed and you only need to do one side.

[Xxray]

If it is .25 you can go right to the finish pass, perhaps using a 45 angle to minimize stress on the bit on the 1st pass.

.5 corian, which is much more common than .25, needs some work and there are some different options. Tops for me is bandsaw it in half, but not everyone has access to a bandsaw that could make such a cut [I do !]. I have tried planing it, it works but very messy and you must take very light passes. Drum sander may or may not be practical, it does sand but have never used it for purposes of thickness.
Finally there is surface via CNC, any number of ways to hold it down. You could simply screw it to the table, but that would leave a waste area about .5 inches all the way around, in addition to what you waste hogging it out. I use an improvised hold down jig for stuff like that, just make sure to take very light bites using this method as well [.125 at most]. .25 or better endmill works fine.

All of that said, there is no reason why you couldn't do a litho with .5 corian, yes for that you would need a roughing pass, which would accomplish the same purpose as hogging it out surfacing, albeit a little slower.

[NormanAlbert]

Hi: As my lithophanes are mostly in the 6 inches wide or less in size, I slice the .5 inch pieces on the table saw. About an 1.5 high cut at a time and I look for a .2 finished thickness. A sharp carbide saw blade and I can get a quantity of "planks" 6 inches wide and varying lengths in short order. Norm

[ger21]

I've used 1/2" Corian for lithophanes. What I've done is pocket out the area where the lithophane will be, and carve the lithophane into the bottom of the pocket.

At work, we surface a lot of 1/2" Corian down to 3/8" and 1/4" for various uses. I typically use a 1/2" low helix spiral to remove the excess material. Be aware that different colors of Corian behave differently. Some will warp a lot when surfaced, and some will remain perfectly flat.
Because of the warping, I machine in a spiral pattern, from the outside towards the center. I use a vacuum table, and when warping occurs, the edges start to lift up. By starting at the edges, the Corian is always flat where the material is being removed.

[Bob Reda]

I just use my planer, light passes

Bob