Spaghetti for a nickel

[wood-of-1kind]

Hold on to your appetite. This is a pen forum and not a restaurant, so allow me to explain. The 'nickle' refers to the pen hardware(finish), while the 'spaghetti' is for the swirls of wood grain that was created by rolling up sheets of veneer. The body of the pen is made out cherry and walnut veneers. Those with sharp vision will notice my 'oops' band of zebrawood. Turning this homemade blank was most challenging and is hard on tools (skew and gouge). The blank is impregnated with industrial white glue that is extremely hard when dry and dulls the tools easily. I stuck with it and persevered off and on for close to a week (multiple glue up repairs). Definitely the most time consuming pen that I've crafted so far. Your comments and observations are welcomed.

 

[rtparso]

Great idea. Looks good. Has a lot of potential. I think you need to find another glue.

 

[Spike]

sweet that has a really cool effect.

 

[JimGo]

I really like the concept. The joints make it look kind of like a cutting board, though. It would really make a neat accent band on an otherwise plain, contrasting wood.

 

[gerryr]

That is really slick, but I agree with Ron that you need to find another glue.

 

[Johnathan]

Well that's unique. [8D]

 

[Jim15]

Very different and very neat.

jim

 

[pete00]

neat idea i see potential in it as well....

 

[Ron Mc]

WOW!! Now that was a lot of work! Nicely done and it looks to be well executed. I imagine that this blank alone took a tremendous amount of time to make so Thanks for hanging in there so that we could enjoy it.[]

 

[wood-of-1kind]

Thanks for the kind comments especially from Ron Mc, who I have a great deal of admiration for the beautiful glue up blanks that he creates. It does take a lot of time to do this type of work,but hey, isn't that the reason we have hobbies "time well wasted".

-Peter-
[]

 

[nilsatcraft]

Very innovative, Peter! I love to see these new ideas and experiments and yours came out really well. Good going

 

[angboy]

It's so unique and creative- I absolutely love it!!!! I wonder.... just maybe.... someday.... I'll be able to make something this nice!! [][]

 

[BigRob777]

Wow, that's an eye-full. Like creating your own grain. I like it.
Rob

 

[jdavis]

cleverly different.

 

[wood-of-1kind]

I went back to the drawing board and redesigned my spaghetti pen. I went back to using more conventional white glue and got better results. Secondly, I glued the veneer 'rolls' in a less restrictive manner and hence the larger growth rings. Eureka!
No more blowouts and no need to add 'oops'bands to save the blank. Turning time was under an hour this time with the use of my skew more extensively to avoid tear outs.
-Peter-

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[dfurlano]

Peter very nice! First time I have ever seen this! Did you wet the veneers before you curled them?

 

[Dan]

Peter, I think your result with the second pen speaks very well of your method. Beautiful! Now you're going to have to describe the process for the rest of us. Like how did you keep the veneer from cracking or splitting as you rolled it? Did you turn down a Cherry blank and then glue the veneer to it?

Dan

 

[wood-of-1kind]

Dan & Dan,
I rolled sheets of cherry and walnut veneers into a shape of a log. Apply glue(white)and build up layers of veneer sheets and keep alternating colours.Once you have veneer logs(reeds)line them up side by side and sandwich the logs with flat sheets of veneer on the top and bottom. The logs were pressed together on a high frequency press at work. One of these presses (HF) costs around $125K so I don't know how readily available they are to the typical hobbyist[8]. I suppose that a homemade press would also work but the key here is to make sure that there are no voids(air bubbles)between the veneer logs. Hope that my explanation is clear and that it inspires others to build a unique veneer sandwich and come up with a rather unique turning. I did not find it necessary to wet the veneer since the trick here is to roll them up 'loosely' and the glue itself will help to keep the sheets pliable. Crushing is not a problem since the sandwich design(flat sheets) will keep everything together.

-Peter-[]