A Learning Experience

[bfgladden]

The first pen is pecan and hackberry with aluminum. It was going so well until it came time for finishing. I wasn't thinking and used EEE and the entire pen turned black from the aluminum :frown:. (Anyone have any tips for finishing a pen with aluminum accents without getting the dust all in the grain?) Managed to get it mostly back to the correct color. Then when I was pressing it together, one of the scallops separated from the pen......

The second pen I was quite happy with. Its the Alchemy blank from ExoticBlanks.com on a Copper Jr. Retro.

As always, comments and critiques are welcome and appreciated.

 

[desertyellow]

you will find that you learn the most from the ones that don't go as planned.
Good job on both.

 

[Dalecamino]

That's why I gave my jar of EEE away . Still , nice work and nice pens !

 

[artme]

Classy pens, especially the first one. It may have given you problems but was certainly well worth the aggro.:star::star::star:

 

[leehljp]

(Anyone have any tips for finishing a pen with aluminum accents without getting the dust all in the grain?)

IF you had not written about it, I would have thought that the hackberry was supposed to be that color. GREAT looking pen.

AS to the finishing with aluminum accents - yes and I had to learn a different method. I use a very very sharp scraper. I sharpen it on a stone, use 4000 grit sandpaper on a piece of glass to hone it to a mirror like shine and then use that for the final .1mm shaping at high speed. For me, that cuts smooth to the point that it does not need sanding and I apply finish directly over this.

I have done about a dozen like this - and that is the only way I can keep the wood clean. To be honest about this, I have used aluminum but my reference is to something that smears far more than aluminum dust. I use tin/silver solder as an inlay and I promise you that smears much worse than aluminum and is harder to get off. So, the sharp blunt end scraper at high speed does the job. And one caveat to this method - it only works on hard or stabilized wood, not on soft wood. Soft wood does better with a skew, but the skew is more difficult (for me) to work with the metal inlay/segments on wood.

 

[rjwolfe3]

Looks great and the same thing happens to you that happens to me!

 

[bfgladden]

IF you had not written about it, I would have thought that the hackberry was supposed to be that color. GREAT looking pen.

AS to the finishing with aluminum accents - yes and I had to learn a different method. I use a very very sharp scraper. I sharpen it on a stone, use 4000 grit sandpaper on a piece of glass to hone it to a mirror like shine and then use that for the final .1mm shaping at high speed. For me, that cuts smooth to the point that it does not need sanding and I apply finish directly over this.

I have done about a dozen like this - and that is the only way I can keep the wood clean. To be honest about this, I have used aluminum but my reference is to something that smears far more than aluminum dust. I use tin/silver solder as an inlay and I promise you that smears much worse than aluminum and is harder to get off. So, the sharp blunt end scraper at high speed does the job. And one caveat to this method - it only works on hard or stabilized wood, not on soft wood. Soft wood does better with a skew, but the skew is more difficult (for me) to work with the metal inlay/segments on wood.

Thanks! I hadn't thought of a scraper to do this, I'll give it a try with the next pen

 

[leehljp]

Thanks! I hadn't thought of a scraper to do this, I'll give it a try with the next pen

Brian,

Click here for a link to the type of pen that I did. The sliver dots smeared like soft pencil lead when sanded.

Russ Fairfield wrote the following:
If you really want to see the extreme differences, try using a both scraper and skew on Cocobolo, Blackwood, or Desert Ironwood. You will find that the scraper might be the better tool for these very hard species. At the opposite extreme, the scraper will be a disaster on a soft wood like Douglas Fir or Pine, while a sharp skew can leave a smooth clean cut and polished surface that doesn't need sanding.

It can be found in this post (click here).