building the blank

[mikec76]

ok I have seen various pens that are carved (by hand or laser I'm not sure)
but they look like they have 2 different woods in them and since I am currently attempting to carve a rose vine up a pen blank I thought it would be really neat to have the uncut part one wood and the lower part another ..

any ideas how this is done??

also is a dremel with sanding tips the best way to sand and finish the work once I am done?

 

[mikec76]

ok I think I am gonna dig out all my acrylics and paint the lower areas of the carvings and then figure out how to finish it (=

 

[great12b4ever]

Mike, I am not certain how deep you plan on making the carvings. I know of one way in which a Spiral carving was done and that was to turn a blank down to the OD size of the base of the carving depth. Then take the blank that you want for the outside main wood and drill the center out to match the OD of the already turned blank. Glue the smaller blank into the larger blank, and let cure. Then when you carve through the top layer, the bottom layer will show and you have the contrasting woods.
For instance if you determine that your outside blank will be .625" when turned, and you want to carve .0625" deep, then you would turn the inner blank to .500" OD. Drill the outside blank .500" OD, or just a few thousanths over to allow glue room, and glue in. After you turn the outside blank down to .625" you carve .0625" or deeper and you are in the second wood which will show. It goes without saying tho, that you need to drill extremely accurate, and if you turn to too small on the ends, the second wood will show.

Hope this makes sense and helps.