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I'm making some pegs for my music instrument. I have seen in the market a lot of these pieces under the category of " Acrylic". They have a metal rod in the down part inside the acrylic to work as a core where the strings are pulled.

So I started to work for my first time with epoxy resin to replicate these pegs. I was wondering, is epoxy resin stronger than the acrylic? Or vice-versa?

Here's a picture of the acrylic pegs:

enter image description here

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    My impression is that epoxy is harder and more brittle than acrylic, so if you put it under enough stress, epoxy would break first, but that's just a guess. If it has a metal rod doing the heavy lifting, the acrylic could be for appearance, and maybe the friction to keep the peg from turning (as a softer plastic, it would provide some grip). Acrylic might be better for that purpose than epoxy, so "better" might relate to something other than strength. I suspect we'll be looking to you for the answer on this one. :-)
    – fixer1234
    Commented Aug 21, 2022 at 17:37
  • Thank you for your answer ! To be honest i don't think the pegs gets into that enough stress, since usually most of the tunning is C-G-C, but indeed they work over friction, but not that bad. Still haven't tried the ones i made since still curing, resine is 3:1 and made 2 layers, still need to sand, polish and drill. I don't know if it's allowed but here's a picture of the acrylic pegs: tinypic.host/i/ccWig
    – Ace
    Commented Aug 21, 2022 at 17:58
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    Their pegs look very much like epoxy and with the metal inserts, they should do just fine. I don't know how you would create the color transition with acrylic. And acrylic is a strange material. In general it is more flexible (=less brittle) than epoxy, but gets scratches very easily and if you cut it at a sharp angle, the area becomes very unstable and prone to breaking.
    – Elmy ♦
    Commented Aug 21, 2022 at 19:59
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    @elmy there are castable acrylics, some transparent if a vacuum is applied during curing. They're not common in craft, but they exist and can be dyed
    – Chris H
    Commented Aug 21, 2022 at 20:06
  • Thanks! Tbh ive seen them before on store and feel pretty light and pretty much plastic tho, that's why I was wondering if i should insert something like brass when the epoxy gets in the gel phase, but right now I'm working with 3:1 epoxy, first time doing this tho, but took around 4 hours to get in something like that...
    – Ace
    Commented Aug 21, 2022 at 20:06

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Acrylic pegs cut from a single piece of material will typically be more resistant than pure epoxy pegs (except for scratching), particularly with a twisting motion as epoxy has little elasticity. It will snap when acyclic will bend or tear.

Epoxy with a metal or acrylic core can overcome most of these issues and provide a more resilient peg, presuming that the core is thick enough and is of a material with sufficient flexibility.

This of course comes with the general "you get what you pay for" caveat. A cheap A will usually be less resilient than a higher quality B.

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