Azurite Trustone is HARD!

[randyrls]

Tonight I started on a Sierra Click pen of Azurite Trustone. I have done several other pens of various Trustone forms and found them a pleasure to turn. This one however is hard as nails!

My skew won't even make a dent. All I get is powder off the edge. I need to grind and re-hone the edges.
<rant mode off>

 

[redfishsc]

You may find switching to a spindle gouge or even a roughing gouge to be useful.

Lapis (from CSA) is also super-tool-dulling. I had no problem with it though, I use a diamond hone to sharpen my skew, I just had to do it more often.