Robert111
Member
Jeff made this from a pine cone. It was kind of porous after I turned it and needed filling with dust and thin ca. Then the little holes turned invisible. Just rubbed in the fine dust from turning and dropped thin ca slowly over the entire blank. Didn't spray with accelerator for about 5 minutes to avoid the ca turning white. Then I still got a little whiteness, but I turned it down with a square-end scraper back to the resin and went ahead and finished it.
The pine cone parts around the ends of the blanks stuck like crazy to the bushings in spite of all my attempts to prevent this. I had coated the bushings with wax and scraped them down to metal after applying the ca finish, but they were like welded to the pine cone pieces on the edge of the blanks. By the time I could get them loose, the blanks had broken about 1/16" back from the edge.
First I tried to repair with ca and dust, but I could see the repairs. Then I sanded off the repaired edges leaving the upper and lower blanks each about an 1/8" shorter than original. This was OK, however, as the ink reservoir still fit in the lower tube and the nib had plenty of clearance in the upper.
The resulting pen is a little shorter than the regular Atrax, but I don't mind. All in all, an interesting pen blank.
The pine cone parts around the ends of the blanks stuck like crazy to the bushings in spite of all my attempts to prevent this. I had coated the bushings with wax and scraped them down to metal after applying the ca finish, but they were like welded to the pine cone pieces on the edge of the blanks. By the time I could get them loose, the blanks had broken about 1/16" back from the edge.
First I tried to repair with ca and dust, but I could see the repairs. Then I sanded off the repaired edges leaving the upper and lower blanks each about an 1/8" shorter than original. This was OK, however, as the ink reservoir still fit in the lower tube and the nib had plenty of clearance in the upper.
The resulting pen is a little shorter than the regular Atrax, but I don't mind. All in all, an interesting pen blank.
