Cocabolo loss of color?

[skydiveterp]

I am starting to turn pens. I just turned a cocabolo pen. the color was real nice on the outside before I turned it. once I turned it, the orange colors vanished. I already polished it with a friction polish (I just read the articles that friction polishes are not good and I should go with a BLO/CA finish). does anyone know how I could get these colors back onto the surface? is it something that just requires time/curing? heat? UV rays? something else?

thanks,
Lewis

 

[Ryan]

Welcome to IAP!

You did not loose the color on your coco. Most woods will loose their color when they are freshly milled. With exposure to UV light it will regain it's natural color (Pantina). This will happen in months or hours depending on where you put the pen.[]

Having said that Coco you never know what you are going to get until it is done is my experience.

Ryan

 

[Ron in Drums PA]

Give your pen a suntan and the colors will return.

 

[ilikewood]

Cocobolo will oxidize over time back to the orange hues it once had. It will be slow if you have a good finish on the pen as it prevents the air and light from doing its work. Some of the Cocobolo on the market is not quite as dense as others. This type will "orange" very quickly. Some is very dark, dense, and oily and these will "orange" very slowly or none at all.

 

[CPDesigns]

I have had some experience with coco blanks that looked almost like ebony after they were turned down. Some of them got a little bit of color back, but for the most part they stayed pretty dark. What kind of pen did you turn? I've found that blanks with large/wide grains lose a lot of their character when turned down (especially slimlines turned B2B). If it was a particularly wide-grained piece of coco you might have just ended up with a figureless pen. You can try setting the pens in a window that gets some direct sunlight for a few days (works wonders on purpleheart and cherry for rapidly getting that "aged" look).

 

[skydiveterp]

Thanks for all of your advice. This is a somewhat large grained cocobolo piece. I got it from Woodcraft. I think that Woodcraft sometimes sells inferior blanks while other times, they do a good job. I will try the whole UV light thing and see if the colors come back. otherwise, I guess I will have to turn another one from another place.

Thanks again.

 

[jwoodwright]

That's what I do, leave them on the dash. Turn them at noon. Kinda like baking 101...