My Journey So Far

[StephenM]

Here are the first few pens I turned back in April:

And here's what I've done in the past few weeks:

Unknown South American Hardwood from the .79 bin at Rockler

Red Bud

Crotch Maple

Central American Rosewood

Buckeye Burl

Irish Bog Oak (helps having a brother-in-law who's an Archeologist !!

Birdseye Maple



Any critiques, pointers, etc. would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for looking. (I'm still working on my photography skills...)

 

[Rangertrek]

It appears your are making significant progress with your quality of work. Nor sure, but it looks like a ca finish, and if so, you have done very well with it.

Fit and finish looks good in all the photos. You may want to consider a less 'busy' background for the pics. This one takes my eye away from the pens toward the shadows, etc.

Nice job!

 

[boxerman]

Very nice bunch of pens.

 

[G1Pens]

NIce pens. I started with the Euros. They aren't the easiest place to start due to the tenons. If you can handle that, you will be fine.

 

[mredburn]

Im not sure of other memebers moniters but your pictures are to large to see a pen at one glance i have to scroll down to see a whole pen. You might resize your pictures down a tad. that will help with the overwhelming background a little also.

 

[youthinthewild]

Beautiful mix of woods!!!!!

 

[ragz]

nice progress so far
The one critque I have at this point is make sure you sand with the grain between grits. You have some slight sanding swirls that your finish mostly cover. Other than that nice fit and finish!

 

[rizaydog]

Looks like your are doing a great job. Very nice start.

 

[StephenM]

Thanks everyone. Next time I'll grab something other than an old bath towel for a background.

ragz - I do all my sanding with the grain and couldn't figure out where the swirl marks were coming from. I finally figured out that it's the Mylands friction polish. No matter how many coats I put on or how many times I sanded back with the grain with 4x0 steel wool, the next coat got the swirls. I finally switched to BLO and CA with the birdseye maple and the swirls are now gone.

 

[ragz]

Couldn't tell what your finish was so I took a guess at the swirls. In any case good work!