My most recent pen

[Scooley01]

I've only been turning for about a month...did a dozen or so slimline pens in junky wood that shipped with the lathe and tools, and then ordered some laminated hardwoods and a few acrylics. I love how the acrylics turn out, and I'm slowly finding ways to get rid of the fine scratches left after sanding/polishing.

This is my favorite, but the acrylic has a bubble near the tip and it cracked.

Sorry the picture's shaky...any tips on photographing pens would be appreciated!

 

[ctubbs]

That pen must be thrown away quickly, it is spoiled. It has done turned GREEN! OMG! Sorry Scooley. That is one fine looking pen. You did a good job on fit and the finish looks good, too. The first thing I recomend in photos is a good tripod. Find a sturdy one. Set it up in the store with your camera mounted. give it a gentle shake and see if you have camera movement. The camera should stay where you put it. The legs should be easy to adjust but stay where they are set. Push down on the tripod and nothing should slide or give. Now I am not talking about getting on the tripod, but put a bit of push and watch what happens. If the tripod feels wear, it is. You will spend some money on a good tripod. In the meantime, find a table or other stable thing that the camera can sit on that will allow you to triger it without you having to hold the camera. That will help a bit. There are articles in the library and on the photograph forum that will help with your lighting. There have been many threads recently on the lighting also. I am open to pms if I may be of any help.
Charles

 

[Scooley01]

Yes I just found the forum for photography; silly of me to think there wouldn't be one here!

The main issue for my photographing is that I use my phone's camera, because my digital camera's lens is messed up and puts weird purple blotches in my pictures. Unfortunately, even though my phone's camera is acceptable, it doesn't tripod mount

I was really upset when I hit that bubble near the tip because I liked how the pen was turning out.

I'll probably make another topic with a smattering of my other creations...

 

[Drstrangefart]

Something I do with bubbles in my acrylic (as well as shatter-outs) is hit 'em with black sharpie and get all the way down to the bottom of the void. Makes it easy to spot how much turning you have left when you stop the lathe for a second. On some lighter colored acrylics you can watch the black blob go away as you work. I find a lot of cracks can be filled with thin CA and then use a matching Sharpie color to blend the damage. Just keep it on the CA. It's worked for red, black, and blue for me so far. And that is some nice work. My third acylic attempt shattered all the way around the tube and I made sure it met concrete at a great velocity to insure I didn't try to save it.

 

[Scooley01]

Unfortunately the bubble goes all the way to the brass, hence that whole area of acrylic is super thin and cracked during sanding. I tried to use CA to seal the crack, and it worked more or less, but when you hold the pen, the acrylic still flexes right there and I wrote two words and the crack was back. Thanks for the compliments

 

[Robert Taylor]

you could always move the clip over the crack.

 

[Scooley01]

It's at the tip end

 

[Jgrden]

Scooley01, greetings, neighbor.

John, Conroe, Texas