Cypress Pens

[reddwil]

I built a addition onto my house a few years back. I finished one of the rooms in reclaimed cypress. I saved some of the scraped and made some pen blanks. It was extremely figured and beautiful. I turned some pens today out of it or a least I tried. I've never turned cypress before, but I had 4 of the 8 blanks blow out. It seems to be very moist, I think from sap. Anybody fool with cypress, whats been your experience with it. The ones that survived made some great looking pens,

 

[wdcav1952]

Kent, I did a few cypress pens for my brother to give his employees as a pen with Louisiana flavor. The wood I used was dry and gave me no problems. I found it rather plain.

 

[R2]

If your Cypress is producing great looking pens then go for it![8D]

 

[gatornick]

I've turned a bunch of river reclaimed cypress pens, with mixed success. Some have turned out amazing, some didn't work at all. My experience, or possibly my lack of skew experience, has led me to turn a little big and sand down to size. The sand paper really gums up, but so far this has worked best for me. I have recently soaked a couple in wood hardener. One worked great, the other had the coloring altered by the hardener, but that might be worth a try for you. Good luck.

 

[Hello]

if you have a gas oven, you can drill the blank and let the heat from the pilot light dry your blank out (over a weeks time maybe)...then follow the "corn cob" tutorial that's on here somewhere for turning.