jarrah Burl

[BarryK]

I bought some jarrah burl pen blanks off ebay, and was wondering if any of you have ever used jarrah burl for pens.

The blanks are FULL of voids (desirable in jarrah, I know). It will take some pretty careful drilling to get them drilled for the brass tubes and not blow out.

Should I fill the voids (epoxy or thick CA)? or just leave them and turn and polish around the voids?

Any ideas?

 

[Scott]

Hi Barry!

I've done a couple of pens out of Jarrah burl. Nice stuff! I was a bit worried about the voids, so I sent mine off to Bill Baumbeck and got them stabilized. Stabilizing soes not fill the voids, but I think it helped hold things together. After I got the pen turned I was able to do a sealer coat of CA applied with sandpaper that did a nice job of filling up the small voids in my pens. I think filling the voids with a black tinted epoxy would also be nice. Filling them with crushed stone might be too much, but might be fun to try for the heck of it! So I feel that filling the voids is best. Not filling them would increase the chances of having "pocket crud" getting impacted in them!

Scott.

 

[BarryK]

where do you get black tinted epoxy? or can I mix my own...would adding an anlyne (spelling??) dye powder to the 2-part epoxy work?

 

[Scott]

Hi Barry,

You'd be surprised what you could mix with epoxy to tint it! I use the powdered poster paints you buy at the craft stores, but there are all kinds of things you could use. I'm thinking of tinting some epoxy with gold rub-n-buff! Some things you never know unless you try them! Good Luck!

Scott.