Grapefruit Wood Pen ? ? ? ?

[W.Y.]

My good friend Jeff Powell sent me a variety of wood blanks several years ago . There was one only grapefruit wood blank in the lot and up until then I had never seen a piece of grapefruit wood.
It appeared to be either cut on on angle or end grain cut so I was reluctant to try it.
I have picked it up several times in the past year and wondered if I should or I shouldn't . It was very light in weight so I was afraid with the grain orientation and its light weight , it might self destruct on the lathe.
Yesterday , I decided to try stabilizing it by applying thin CA to all sides and the ends. It soaked it in like a sponge . So today was the day . It took some careful turning with a skew to prevent chipping but I managed to make a pen from it.

This round top Euro is finished with 6 coats of BLO/CA at 45 second intervals and then an application of One Step plastic polish and a coat of Carnauba wax..

I was quite pleased to be able to save this unusual (to me) piece of wood.

 

[RMB]

Nice, a very interesting peice.

 

[MobilMan]

Kinda small picture but it looks real nice. Kinda like a burl. But the finish looks real sharp. And you picked just the right kit to put it with. Good going.

 

[johncrane]

William!
From what l can see you done very well, the pen is different, and different is a good thing.:biggrin:

 

[hunter-27]

Looking for more grapefruit, here is where I buy mine. Very good guy to work with, nice products. http://cgi.ebay.com/GRAPEFRUIT-CITR...5|66:2|65:12|39:1|240:1318|301:1|293:1|294:50

 

[Dalecamino]

Very nice work William . That's one pretty piece of wood .

 

[Mather323]

Nice work and you pen and the wood looks very great!

 

[Rifleman1776]

From what you say, I believe your piece of wood is atypical for grapefruit or any citrus. Citrus woods are usually plain and very hard. They are good woods and useful for a lot of things but don't have the character yours shows. Mebbe you have some crotch that is spalting but it doesn't look like typical grapefruit or any citrus.
Regardless, you ended up with a fine looking pen.

 

[workinforwood]

Beautiful looking pen Bill. Was that piece a bit "sappy" ? Most of what I have is more bluish than your photo, more like what I see under the end of your clip. The photo quality looks good, perhaps the color balance on the camera is off a bit. Either way, glad you were able to use it and put it on a nice kit. It is grapefruit root burl. Got a bunch of it from the lumber lady of Yuma. I miss her.

 

[W.Y.]

Jeff;
No , it wasn't "sappy" at all . Glad to know now that it was from a root ball . It had the appearance of being spalted which made it look fragile . That is why I gave it the CA soak to stabilize it . I was delighted with the coloring on the final turning. It looks so much nicer in the hand than in the picture. If I get a chance I might try to get a better photo in macro to show the beauty of the wood a little better.

Sorry about the poor quality picture . I just dumped it out of my camera into the computer with no touch up at all. It was under not the best lighting conditions on my kitchen counter where I took the picture.
I really must work on my photograpphy but I enjoy turning stuff more than taking pictures of it.

 

[W.Y.]

Some people have asked if I can post more close up pictures since I found out that it is a piece of grapefruit root burl .
I sure would like to get a bunch of that wood .

Here is a better attempt at photography showing both top and bottom.

 

[rjwolfe3]

Wow that is beautiful

 

[Longfellow]

Grapefruit Wood

I am the eBay seller Hunter 27 mentions in his post. If anyone wants to purchase Grapefruit, Orange, Tangerine and other local Florida woods without having to bid on it ,contact me. Here is a sample of some grapefruit.

 

[bitshird]

sure is a pretty piece of wood, it made a very nice pen.

 

[toolcrazy]

Beautiful pen, nice work.

 

[Ligget]

Great work, lovely blank with a super finish!

 

[Ozzy]

Beautiful pen.