Please share! How did you do the copper in-lay? Your pen looks so good I want to try! :laugh:
Basically, I took each of the blanks, and scroll sawed them apart in a sort of "s" shaped path, glued back together with a piece of copper sheet sandwiched in (I used 0.162" thick copper sheet and a scroll saw blade with 0.18" kerf) with thick CA glue. After that dried and the squeeze out was cleaned up on the sander, I rotated the blank 90 degrees and did it again. Make sure the second slice across the blank enters and leaves the sides at different locations from the first cut. The crossing "s" shapes end up giving you a really random curvy effect when turned down. The effect isn't nearly as cool if you rotate a full 180 degrees between cuts.
Ordered the copper sheet from onlinemetals.com. Copper ain't cheap. I've done a number as well with aluminum flashing left over from a construction project. Inspiration for sure from RJBwoodturner's videos on youtube, especially his aluminum can celtic knots.
I made a couple little glue-up forms to assist in lining the pieces back up to glue them. Trick is to clamp them to the point that the grain lines back up, and especially the 2 halves of the sliced copper (or other inlay material). Use a slow setting and thick CA glue to fill the gaps and to give you working time to glue up.
Similar in concept to doing celtic knots, but the saw cuts are more free form, rather than rigidly straight and lined up.
Where the pattern leaves small wedges between the inlaid metals as you get close to the final diameter is where things like to fail on a catch. For some reason neither CA glue or epoxy seems to be super reliable on how well it bonds to the metals. Even if they are sanded up really well before hand.
i have had the best luck with the Easywood "finisher" (round tip) for most of the turning. A skew would probably work better, but I don't have skew skills yet. The inlay metals definitely wear down the edge on the turning tools a lot faster, so I really need to find a technique that works with standard tools so I can just sharpen as needed. My "regular" tools are harbor freight cheapo's, so don't hold or take an edge worth a dang. Maybe I'll get a nice skew for Xmas and take the time to learn it.
