I got around to heating up the extruder and putting some plastic in it. Results were poor. The extruder did not have even heating due to the uneven winding of the wire. The whole mess had to be pushed out with a metal rod and it came out like clay despite being well over 230 F.

According to the source below, ABS has a molten viscosity at the lowest of 155 Pa*s. Corn syrup is between 1-2. Vegetable shortening is 250 so molten ABS is about half as viscous as vegetable shortening. No wonder common injection pressure is 15000 PSI. Other sources say peanut butter has a viscosity of about 150-250 Pa*s. So I'll probably use that for testing.

http://plastics.ulprospector.com/generics/1/c/t/acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene-abs-properties-processing

I also found this cool write up on ABS plastic.

http://www.cheme.utm.my/mpj/images/090402_3asif.pdf

Lots of research to be done on translating shear rates and viscosity into molding pressure.

Printed Parts:

I finished printing all the parts I needed to make a PVC hydraulic cylinder. Only to discover the parts don't fit any PVC pipe available at Home Depot. Luckily the parts are simple enough to design myself in Autocad with the correct dimensions. It's a real bummer though, 6 hours of printing wasted.