Rifleman1776
Member
In Show Off I posted my first skin pen in a Cigar style. Having never turned this particular transparent wood before I wanted to experiment before launching into an expensive blank. To the credit of the fine folks at Glimmerz N More, when I ordered my rattlesnake blank, I asked if they had a chunk of scrap material so I could test before turning. What they sent was the Scarlett perch blank claiming it was defective. Folks, I expect that close examination and a good imagination might find fault with this blank. I like it and thank them for their generosity and compliment them for their skills in making these. Enneyhow, I quickly found that it is soft and turns easily. I used a large skew from start to finish. What I didn't expect was the mess it made (see picture). Instead of shavings, it generated this fluffy stuff which I had to clean off the skew every few seconds. BTW, I saved all the waste in a plastic bag. It will be used as filler for voids in other projects. Turning was a routine experience. The time and frustration came in sanding. I first tried pads made for plastics (Abralon?). I started with the third coarsest and it scratched something awful. Gave that up pronto. Turned to Micro Mesh used wet. That did the job but I had to resand three time, skew again, resand twice more with the MM to get the scratches out. The sharp eyed here will note from the picture that I used the 'no mandrel' set up. (Sorry Johnson) So my sanding experiment was limited to only one half of the pen. Number two went much easier. Once polished with MM, I gave another polish with my trusty wool blanket. Put a coat of Trade Secret Wax from Top of the Line Auto Products on and re polished with the wool blanket. Turning this 'transparent wood' is nothing to be afraid of but care is needed. Heck, when isn't care needed?
]