Spalted Pinecone Flat Top

[Gary Beasley]

I decided I would try to do a Flat Top pen in pinecone, a decidedly ambitious project considering the precision the kit calls for in the squaring and cutting of the blank. I got past the first problem of the extended tube setup by drilling an acrylic cutoff the exact depth needed for the tube and used that instead of trying to cut the blank precisely the right size and slipping the tube in. Stick the tube in the cutoff hole add CA to the remaining tube and seat it against the acrylic leaving the tube out.
I finally got the blanks on the mandrel after a fight with the bushings getting a good fit over the tube and started turning. Found the material quite punky and had to stop often to wet it down with CA to firm it up. After I finally got it to size and sanded with a CA coat and polish I was surprised to find spalting on the pinecone blank. Have a look...

 

[maxman400]

Very Nice, I've done quite a few pine cones and have never seen any spalted like that, nice find.

 

[mbroberg]

Your patience paid off!! Neat pen!

 

[boxerman]

Nice pen.

 

[just_call_me_dusty]

Nice job. I do a lot of the flat top series and understand some of the problems. No matter how many I make, I still find myself getting a little careless sometimes even though I know better. Thanks for sharing.

 

[Gary Beasley]

Nice job. I do a lot of the flat top series and understand some of the problems. No matter how many I make, I still find myself getting a little careless sometimes even though I know better. Thanks for sharing.

Thanks all for the comments. I've only done a few of these, and find I always have to glue in the top slug in the upper barrel and the threaded insert to the top of the lower barrel. This time also I had a very hard time pressing the top and bottom together. I suspect the blank was a trifle short on top as the threaded insert is not covered well by the trim ring on the upper barrel. I'm going to get my calipers out and do some careful measurements to see whats off.