My first SOYP post

[JimB]

Well, here it is. I have been really struggling with the CA finish so I promised myself that when I finally figured it out I would post the picture. (It's the best picture I can get with my camera). It seems every pen I tried with CA something went wrong even though it always worked fine on my practice wood. So after trying many ways of doing CA I think I have finally found one that works for me.

Please feel free to give feedback (good or bad) so I can keep getting better at this.

Black Ti Euro with Patuck

 

[bitshird]

Jim you have had far better luck with Paduk than I have, It looks great, the hardest part of Paduk is getting the open grain filled with out turning it white, (it also helps if the wood is dry) [B)][B)][)] I'd say from the picture which isn't real bad either, just doesn't show a shine line, that it is a real nice job on a very difficult wood

 

[JimB]

Thanks Ken. It actually does have a shine line but I couldn't get the shine to show good in the picture. The camera is just a Kodak Easy Share C643 so not very good for close ups like this.

I got some white in the top barrel. Had to finish it 3 times. Lower barrel came out great first time. I didn't know the white was a "feature" of this wood. I thought I was messing up.. thought powder from my gloves was getting into the finish.

 

[ldb2000]

Hi Jim
Thats a fine looking pen .
The shine line problem is not your camera , I think , it's your lighting , try a little direct lighting off axis to give you a point source .
A small lamp several feet away from the pen should help .
Also try giving it a little more exposure to lighten it up .

 

[rdunn12]

Nice pen,fit and finish look great.

 

[ahoiberg]

good first post. keep em' coming.

 

[Marc Phillips]

Nice work.... good looking pen indeed!

Add some light and your pics will look better...

 

[randyrls]

Jim; VERY nice pen, but the photo is too dark and grain detail doesn't show up well.

I usually do some post photo editing to "brighten" photos.

Again, very good job!

I updated your photo. I used Paint Shop Pro and did "Layer", "Duplicate", then applied "Screen" option, then "Layer", "Merge (Flatten)". Most editing programs have these options, although they may not be named the same.

Hope this helps.

 

[desertyellow]

Great pen.
even better after Randy's update.
CA can be tricky but it looks like you have it in check.

 

[Ligget]

Looking good from over here too, well done![]

 

[JimB]

Thanks everyone... and Thanks to Randy for editing my photo. I went back to my photo and did some editing using what is on my laptop (it's a work laptop and I can't install anything) and got the picture to come out much better. I didn't even know I could do this on this computer. Next time I post the photo will be better! Thanks again!