Finally after several tries.

[BJohn]

After many tries I finally finished a pen using White & pink Colorado Alabaster.
The Alabaster is almost translucent so I reversed painted the blank with white paint. Unfortunately the pink lines and marbling does not show up that well. Should I have used a pink color paint or ?

The other pen is an Arkansas Razorback Inlay Novelty pen.


Any and all advise is welcome.

 

[Janster]

.very nice! Is the Pink Alabaster inlaid? Well done.....Jan

 

[JohnGreco]

Nicely done, John! Alabaster has a HUGE variety of densities and opacity, so it's not quite like acrylic in the sense that if you have to reverse paint 1 then you need to reverse paint them all. You have a baseline to work off of now, experimentation will be the only real way to answer your question.

 

[BJohn]

The Razorback inlay is in Holly.

 

[BSea]

You might try a light gray or silver.

 

[BJohn]

I have seen it else were about using gray. I have more of the stone so I will give it a shot along with the pink.

 

[OZturner]

Beautiful Alabaster Pen, John.
Now that all the dust has settled we can see, the result of your great effort.
Excellent Fit and Finish, and a great hardware choice.
Superb.
The Holly Razorback Insert, is also Excellent. Though please excuse me, I must admit I am more attracted to the Alabaster, due to it's complexity.
I would be most interested to hear the outcome of your painting results.
Congratulations.
Brian.

 

[BJohn]

Thanks Brian

If time permit's I will be starting new ones this weekend. I will use a light shade of pink and as Bob mentioned light gray.

The first one took four attempts, I think mainly because I had never turned Alabaster before and it is different then wood or even an acrylic. At least this particular piece was. Very fragile, turned nice but I had two blow outs in the sanding and polishing phases. A third got knocked off the kitchen counter and had a big chip knocked of the end.

Will Post them when I get them done.