Delrin, Acetal, and its many trade names is a material properly known as Polyoxymethylene or POM. It is one of the strongest plastics and is a good go-to material when you want the best properties of plastic, and don’t need the full strength of a metal part. It was originally formulated to compete with Zinc and Aluminum castings after all.
I won’t go too deep into the numbers behind POM. If you need the Young’s Modulus, you probably don’t need this guide. This is intended to be more of a guide to its general properties. When you’re looking for something to fit an application it is usually easier to shift through the surface properties to select a few candidates, and then break the calculator out later to make sure it will work if you’re uncertain about the factor of safety.
The most popular property of POM is its ease of machining. While doing this research every single site I came across referred to it as the most machinable plastic. That’s about as objective as subjective praise can get. It doesn’t tend to grab tools like, for example, HDPE. It also chips nicely unlike UHMW and Nylon. Some plastics, like UHMW, have the unfortunate tendency to render the dials on a mill or lathe meaningless as the plastic deflects away from the tool. POM does not do this as much. Of course these other plastics have their strengths as well, but if any plastic will do, and you’re machining, POM is a very good choice.
