Dai Sensei
Member
I started many months ago when I saw an Alligator jaw pen here. I thought I could do that, but with Australian salt-water croc jaw bones, but unfortunately it's not so easy in Australia :frown:. I rang up a friend from Darwin who works at a croc farm, he said he may have some, but I'd need to arrange the permits. Yes, in Australia they are protected, so you need permits to send them and another permit to receive them 
. I few months later, and with all the necessary permits, I had a dozen jaw bones to play with. My friend was also interested in selling my final high end pens at the park shop, should be very popular with the asian tourists
.
These jaw bones are from the crocs bread for meat/skins/teeth/bones etc, not from wild ones, so are only 1.5m long when slaughtered. Not very big and full of holes from veins or similar, and hollows natural to the jaw shape. Drilling to get solid bone is very difficult for the smaller pen kits, impossible for the high end larger kits.
I started filling the teeth holes with coloured resin, then casting the remainder on clear resin. I found there were too many holes and hollows, filled with clear resin exposed after turning, so went to complete casting with a suitable coloured resin.
I finished 2 Cigar pens, one with 24krt gold filled resin, the other with my blood red resin, and a Sierra with the blood red resin. I few issues I had to overcome with the gold, and a few others with the red, but a good learning experience. These are so my friend can take his pick, a little thank you for the effort at his end.
I have now cast more blanks using the largest pieces I had in gold for a couple of Cambridges, and as these are the largest I have, jaw bones cast back to back for a Majestic (like worthless wood croc bone blanks :biggrin. They are drilled ready for the tubes, hopefully I get a chance to turn them next weekend.
Cheers
. I few months later, and with all the necessary permits, I had a dozen jaw bones to play with. My friend was also interested in selling my final high end pens at the park shop, should be very popular with the asian tourists
These jaw bones are from the crocs bread for meat/skins/teeth/bones etc, not from wild ones, so are only 1.5m long when slaughtered. Not very big and full of holes from veins or similar, and hollows natural to the jaw shape. Drilling to get solid bone is very difficult for the smaller pen kits, impossible for the high end larger kits.
I started filling the teeth holes with coloured resin, then casting the remainder on clear resin. I found there were too many holes and hollows, filled with clear resin exposed after turning, so went to complete casting with a suitable coloured resin.
I finished 2 Cigar pens, one with 24krt gold filled resin, the other with my blood red resin, and a Sierra with the blood red resin. I few issues I had to overcome with the gold, and a few others with the red, but a good learning experience. These are so my friend can take his pick, a little thank you for the effort at his end.
I have now cast more blanks using the largest pieces I had in gold for a couple of Cambridges, and as these are the largest I have, jaw bones cast back to back for a Majestic (like worthless wood croc bone blanks :biggrin
. They are drilled ready for the tubes, hopefully I get a chance to turn them next weekend.Cheers
