Robert, would you elaborate on that statement? I have an idea that would use some acrylic... having an idea of how to machine it before I do would be great! You can start another thread so as not to muddy this one.
Thanks
Eric
The one experience, good thing I had a foot or so of the stuff.
Drilling the bore hole. First crack at it took it like it was metal. Drilled a slight undersized hole to then ream to size. Ah no. Spun it fast and a sharp bit, way over size. Went down on the initial hole size, think it was around 0.300. Hole surface little milky appearance but not to bad off. This time the reamer 0.374 had some meat to remove. Hole surface not bad. Spun it slow and feed the reamer in with the tailstock crank. Hole came out at 0.380. used a wooden plug with polish past to get the surface clear. Easy op, Finish hole size was 0.382. Salvation was i turned the piston to 0.385 so I could fit it to the cylinder, saved me from having to make another.
Flycutter for the flat side of the cylinder. Cranked the lathe up to 3k with light cuts and just spun the crank by hand. Surface perty smooth, a few swipes of 220-400 and some polish paste came out clear as a bell.
Like I said this is the first time I tried cutting that stuff, what i gather is to leave lots of extra material on the outsides and make the bored holes way undersized. Easy stuff to sand to size, real easy for the machine to make scrap out of it.
Buffing wheel will quickly round the edges, so that usage is a light touch affair or real soft wheel. The piston bore will quickly let you know how smooth the piston is. Have to re polish the bore before I make it a shelf queen

Now if any of that makes sense your a better reader than I am a writer. For a see through, its good stuff.
Robert