Ok, Anthony...

[DCBluesman]

so you're not a "child of the sixties" and you won't smoke my purple cigar. How about this one? Asian redwood burl. (with TSW-1129!)

Thank you all for looking. Comments, critiques and suggestions are welcome!

 

[Gary]

Wow...that is one nice pen, Lou! I love the color and figure.

 

[dougle40]

Nice pen Lou and a beautiful piece of wood .

 

[Tom McMillan]

Beautiful pen Lou!! Great looking finish!!

 

[KKingery]

Very nice work indeed!

 

[WoodChucker]

It looks like a smoker to me. []

Nice job Lou!

 

[timdaleiden]

Hi Lou,

That is one fine looking finish on the pen. Very nice.

I have noticed that on some of the Cigar pens you have shown lately, that it seems that something is not working out at the center band.

Ideally, the hardware should be flush with the barrel. The nib and finial ends look superb.

The bushings themselves are not always accurate, and should be checked with calipers, to see if they match hardware.

Keep up the good work, and don't be afraid to elaborate on the finish. It looks very good. []

 

[melogic]

Nice looking pen Lou! That is awesomly beautiful. I just ordered some woods from Bill B. and I can't wait. This is my first order from him and I'm as excited as a 5 year old at Christmas time. I also ordered a couple Statesman pens.

 

[DCBluesman]

Tim--Thanks for the comments. In looking at the half dozen or so cigar-styles that I've made this week I'm batting .500. You're right, I've got to get out my vernier calipers! As for the finish, I sand the heck out of these burls. Since there is no obvious grain, I sand with the lathe on and then follow with the sanding the length of the blanks...All the way to MM12000 on this one. (sometimes I stop at 400 grit and let Beall do the rest of the work.) After that, there are three separate coats of Oxford Ultima water-borne lacquer, each separated by a light sanding with MM4000. After the final sanding, I added two coats of TSW-1129 [the newest lab version of Trade Secret for Wood(TM)].

Originally posted by timdaleiden
<br />Hi Lou,

That is one fine looking finish on the pen. Very nice.

I have noticed that on some of the Cigar pens you have shown lately, that it seems that something is not working out at the center band.

Ideally, the hardware should be flush with the barrel. The nib and finial ends look superb.

The bushings themselves are not always accurate, and should be checked with calipers, to see if they match hardware.

Keep up the good work, and don't be afraid to elaborate on the finish. It looks very good. []

 

[PenWorks]

Great looking pen Lou. The finish and burl was so nice, I thougth it was a resin at first glance.
I'll take a pound of them. Anthony

 

[Brent]

Redwood burl is very nice looking wood. Your finish on it makes it look even better. looks like you are heading in the right direction with your TSW

 

[jwoodwright]

Very Nice Lou. Great Finish...[]

 

[Randy_]

Lou: Is that a photo or a scanned image??

 

[DCBluesman]

Thanks for the comments and critiques. Anthony, if you thought it was a resin I must be doing something right! FYI, Randy (with the dot), it's a scan. I'm working on my photography, but am not there yet.

 

[Gregory Huey]

Great finish Lou. Will the 1129 be available to the public?

 

[Fleabit]

Gotta love the look of burls! I started a cigar pen yesterday with brown box elder burl. Cant wait to see the final look, but the grain showing so far is awesome. Great work and beautiful finish! Hope mine looks half as good.

 

[DCBluesman]

Greg and others who have asked--the strange lab versions of Trade Secret for Wood(TM) are just my way of tinkering and trying to improve on what's out there. Lately I've been working on getting a better result with being able to buff to a high gloss immediately after application. I give the modified stuff a personal test and fail it if anything undesirable happens. So far I've tested 40 formulas and had 38 failures. Fortunately, 1 became marketable. The jury's still out on this one. When will there be a new and improved version? When I'm convinced that it's right! [8D]

Originally posted by Gregory Huey
<br />Great finish Lou. Will the 1129 be available to the public?

 

[opfoto]

Nice pen Lou.

 

[Gregory Huey]

Lou you keep worken on it because one thing is for sure you will get it sooner or later. you know TSW has got to be hard to improve on. It works pretty darn good right now.

 

[jkirkb94]

Love the dark wood of the pen, Lou! Nice pen. Kirk[8D]