Alex D
Member
These are three pens I made for my brother and sister-in-law and my niece for Christmas.
They live in Alaska so I elected to go with a couple of local blanks for my brother and his wife. My niece just started college so I went with something a little "blingier"
First up is a Retro wearing a spalted Alaskan birch blank from exotics with an "oops" catch or two filled with turquoise.
Next up is the bling. My wife helped me pick the kit and blank. This is a Princess wearing a pelican bay blank from Beartooth Woods:
Finally, this is the pen for my SIL. It is a Le Roi Elegant and it was supposed to be wearing a similar blank to the Retro. However, the bottom half of the blank gave me fits. I flooded it with think CA, just like the other blank, but as I turned it, the bottom half was really soft in spots and really hard in others, leaving me with these rock hard islands amid a sea of punky wood. I'm guessing I didn't get the CA flooded well enough, but in my opinion it ended up being a creative plus.
I decided to give segmenting a shot as a result. So, I turned off most of the bottom half below the spalt line. Then, using an xacto, I cut trimmed the blank so that it followed the contours of the spalt line. Then I elected to use a piece of Arctic Caribou antler as the bottom segment. I drilled it, then used a compass to mirror the spalt line again and I left a small gap between the two segments that I filled with turquoise.
Then I enlarged the holes in the pith a little and filled those with turquoise as well.
The whole thing is finished in CA.
Believe it or not, this is actually the effect I was going for. I felt the spalt line looked like a mountain, the gap looked like a river and the pith looked like a waterfall with the antler looking a bit like snow. All in all, a nice Arctic scene.
Oh, and my wife asked me to make this one for her boss. He is a San Francisco Giants fan. It is a Jr. Gent II wearing a coral mosaic blank from Exotics coupled with a solid black cap. I'm a Dodger fan so this was particularly hard to make!
Lots to work on, especially in the photo department, but I'll get there!
Thanks,
Alex
They live in Alaska so I elected to go with a couple of local blanks for my brother and his wife. My niece just started college so I went with something a little "blingier"
First up is a Retro wearing a spalted Alaskan birch blank from exotics with an "oops" catch or two filled with turquoise.
Next up is the bling. My wife helped me pick the kit and blank. This is a Princess wearing a pelican bay blank from Beartooth Woods:
Finally, this is the pen for my SIL. It is a Le Roi Elegant and it was supposed to be wearing a similar blank to the Retro. However, the bottom half of the blank gave me fits. I flooded it with think CA, just like the other blank, but as I turned it, the bottom half was really soft in spots and really hard in others, leaving me with these rock hard islands amid a sea of punky wood. I'm guessing I didn't get the CA flooded well enough, but in my opinion it ended up being a creative plus.
I decided to give segmenting a shot as a result. So, I turned off most of the bottom half below the spalt line. Then, using an xacto, I cut trimmed the blank so that it followed the contours of the spalt line. Then I elected to use a piece of Arctic Caribou antler as the bottom segment. I drilled it, then used a compass to mirror the spalt line again and I left a small gap between the two segments that I filled with turquoise.
Then I enlarged the holes in the pith a little and filled those with turquoise as well.
The whole thing is finished in CA.
Believe it or not, this is actually the effect I was going for. I felt the spalt line looked like a mountain, the gap looked like a river and the pith looked like a waterfall with the antler looking a bit like snow. All in all, a nice Arctic scene.
Oh, and my wife asked me to make this one for her boss. He is a San Francisco Giants fan. It is a Jr. Gent II wearing a coral mosaic blank from Exotics coupled with a solid black cap. I'm a Dodger fan so this was particularly hard to make!
Lots to work on, especially in the photo department, but I'll get there!
Thanks,
Alex
