Cork For More Than Bottles And Floors

[W.Y.]

Sandra (sandra1) of WWF sent me a piece of cork flooring to see if anything could be made with it on a lathe . I received it in the mail at noon today and of course, seeing as I am inquisitive about such things I just had to head to my shop and experiment with it.
I had never seen a piece of cork flooring up close before today and I did not realize it comes so thick and weighs so much for its size. It was one inch thick and weighs probably more than most hardwoods.
Here is a pen I made from a piece of it. It makes quite an unusual pattern being brown with white specs all through it.
One nice thing is that there is no matching of grain from top to bottom barrel and another nice thing is that it doesn't show specs of dust in my photography . :-*
W.Y.

 

[Hosspen]

William,
I really like that look. It probably took a lot less CA glue than the one's I made from regular bottle cork too considering the density of it. Does it float? Do you know where one can buy small amounts of that flooring? Nice work and photo!

 

[W.Y.]

Thanks Hoss;
I didn't check to see if it floats or not.

I would imagine any flooring contractor would have scraps of it for free. I have heard that cork flooring is getting popular so maybe some dumpster diving would find some wherever it is being installed. :wink:

Don't know if it is a special kind of cork or if it is stabilized while making it into flooring or not but I did not need to stabilize it with CA . The only CA I used was for the finish. It turns similar to wood only a little softer. It sands nicely and takes on a nice finish.
W.Y.

 

[Dalecamino]

Good job !

 

[jharvey1309]

I like it it kind of looks like corian

 

[ahoiberg]

nice job and i agree with jharvey, it looks like brown corian. nice pen.

 

[toolcrazy]

That is kinda cool. Looks similar to the trex decking pen I made.

 

[W.Y.]

That is kinda cool. Looks similar to the trex decking pen I made.

Now that is ironic that you said that because the lady sent me two square pieces of wood in one bubble pack envelope each about 5" square. It was along with payment for an item I had sold her. One was the cork and the other was trex decking which I had never heard of before today when I received it.
The trex piece is not near as thick but I think it will be OK for slimlines. I am also going to try that as soon as I get a chance.

What is the trex material ? ? It looks quite hard . Is it a man made composition of something? Hard to tell from the piece she sent.

W.Y.

 

[rjwolfe3]

Trex is a composite material. I think it's made from recyled plastic bags and sawdust. (Some use new plastic.) At least the product they were making on TV used that stuff. Let us know how it turns. I would like to try some myself.

 

[W.Y.]

Correction

Correction
Here is what I replied to the person from my site this morning that sent me the two pieces of material . Both pieces were approx 5" x 5" square.

Sandra ;
Thanks for clarifying that . Somehow I thought that was cork because it looked so much like it and the other piece you sent along with it was Trex decking . I re-read the little note you included and the other piece is bamboo .
I will try out the bamboo as soon as I get a chance.
W.Y.

So what I thought was cork is indeed Trex flooring material .
W.Y.

 

[workinforwood]

Trex is recycled milk cartons and sawdust mixed together. My deck is trex, it's 5/4 thick..not cheap, but way worth the cost!

 

[W.Y.]

OK, now that I have got my misunderstanding straightened out about the two materials that Sandra sent me I tried one with the bamboo flooring . It was only 1/2" thick so it required acurate drilling of the holes but that was no problem by drilling them on my lathe.
W.Y.

 

[bitshird]

Now that's different, it's amazing how many things can be made into pens, nice ones at that, good job.:biggrin:
The bamboo is pretty as well, nice contours.:good:

 

[desertyellow]

Who knew?
It looks good.