Thanks for all the comments ...
Very nice Ron. I think that this is the first Red Fir Bark that I have seen. It has some interesting colors. I guess you had to stabalize it somehow.
Louis, I used Ultraseal II (version I was a failure and not sure if it was me or the product) ... up to this time I haven't been successful turning a pen.
I've made plenty of fly rod handles out of the Red Fir Bark but the O.D. is larger and there has been some bad adhesion problems between the bark and brass tube.
CA doesn't work very well ... I have one glued up now using Sumo and it turned pretty well and I only had to use a small amount of coffee grounds to fill pits, cracks, voids and beetle holes. I couldn't use CA as a finish because the bark was pretty rough even after making a slurry paste to fill voids so it's on it's 7th dip in lacquer at the moment.
>keandkafu
Tell me how you did it. I would like to try something like that overhear on the east coast. What exactly is "Red Fir"? How thick is the bark?
Red Fir is a local name for Doug Fir and some of the bark is up to 4" thick.
I used a 1 15/16" hole saw to make the rings with and faced them up on my sander.
I have a tutorial here on making rings out of bark (pine works well also) that was originally on some rod builders sites.
>DurocShark
I like. Did you collect the bark yourself, or buy it somewhere?
I collected it myself. There are a lot of small lumber yards all over North Idaho in the Panhandle and the bark is readily available.
