Playing with some snakewood

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My local exotic woods dealer had a chunk of snakewood that I just had to get. it was 3" x 7/8" x 72" long. At one of the ends it has splinter cracked into slivers and had some wicked cracks running most of the length. As such it was pretty cheeply priced at $60, but it did have quite a bit of the snakewood pattern visible.


Now I have a rather large pressure pot and have been casting for quite some years now and saw in my minds eye that I could take this splintered wood and cut it into sections and cast it in Alumilite quite easily that would hold the splintered sections together and I thought give quite an interesting profile as well.


The casting went as planned. Well, almost. The sacrifical mold made out of fiberboard did have a bit of a leak that I didn't know about until the pour and by that time its a bit too late. but it made it into the pressure pot and I poured in enough alumilite that it came out even after it set.




The Question Part:


The crack splits of course goes lenght wise with I chose a contrasting blue with silver alumilite. The width that I have on the piece is just about perfect for making Diablo / Sierra style pens.



- Would there be more issues cutting cross grain as it's then the perfect length for the style of pens that I prefer to make?


- Would doing that defeat the colour patterns on the wood?


- After cutting them to sized blocks for turning, would it be beneficial to then stabilize the wood in Cactus Juice?


- Does stabilizing snake wood make any difference at all with turning? reduce the tendancy to blow out?




I am not in this for a business, more do it for the fun and pleasure of making pens. I am under no timeline deadlines or other considerations, but would like to get this to work out. I have prevoiusy bought a few snakewood pen blanks but have yet to get one onto a mandral to turn. Both times it exploded while drilling. I bought the big chunck of wood as it was so much cheeper than trying to buy individual blanks.


Thanks for any insight.


Matt
 
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PatrickR

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Maybe some pics would help/
I have fairly limited experience with snake wood but blowouts have not been an issue. i have stabilized it and I don't think there is a clear advantage. I does stress the wood and that will likely produce cracks. The cracks will then likely fill with CJ. I did some blanks this way and neglected to paint the hole or tube, resulting in brass showing through the crack. The best process for me has been to turn the blank round and drill a 7mm through hole. (Yes the blanks crack in the process) Then cast the blank under pressure, (filling the cracks) I use a matching brown to hide the crack. Then drill and turn as normal.
 

magpens

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I have some limited experience with snakewood. . I have not had any trouble with it. . But I drill and turn it very carefully and rather slowly and I use a metal working lathe. . I can't see that stabilizing would be any advantage because snakewood is so dense it would not absorb the stabilizer.
 
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I will try and be adventurous and see if I can figure out photographs.


IMG_0276.JPG


This is what the end of the snakewood piece looked like. It was split and cracked and at the very end missing quite a bit of the wood. But what I saw was potential to fill in the gaps with some alumilite casting.


that got me this


IMG_0280.jpg


and it looks like this at the very end.


IMG_0278.jpg


and this at the side


IMG_0281.jpg


Now I have two directions that I can cut this casting. I can either go with the grain and that will give me some pens that are completely inside the solid bits of the snakewood. Other pens where there is the rather large split with the missing bits of wood there is an chance when turning and hole placement you might get streeks of snakewood but mostly the blue resin.



However, if I cut across the grain, I would get a solid bit of snakewood at the top and bottome and then the intermitant broken bits of wood surrounded by the blue resin. I think that would esthetically look way beter but I don't know how turning endgrain snakewood will work.


I can put on a new sharp carbide bit and just take it really slowly and hope for the best. I am asking if anyone has tried this (with more skill than I have) and if it worked or was an abject failure any way you try it so don't even bother.???



Any suggestions appreciated.
 

PatrickR

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I have never turned cross cut snake wood. You could loose all of the figure but I really don't know. Try it and let us know how it goes.
 

magpens

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Thanks for posting the pics. . As others have said, I think you need to cut one cross-grain blank and see how it turns out. . If you are careful, as you said, you should be OK. . However, IMHO, cross-grain turned wood pens are not as nice as the other way. . That is my opinion, but with a very dense wood like snakewood, you could be perfectly OK and it could even look better. . Please tell us how you make out.
 
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The cast piece that I have is about 3.5"x12" as I did use a bigger mold than the original piece of wood as the top piece I cut off came out in about 12+ pieces that I tried to reassemble to cast. I know the next cut off the top of the snakewood board also has quite a bit of missing wood but that only goes down another 4-5" and then it looks to be more solid wood. However, I do see quite a few lines that to me look like hairline cracks in the wood. I think that is why I got it so cheap as it's effectively flawed or cracked wood.


Throwing the idea out there. For the rest of the board that looks like it has clear hairline fractures all the way down. Would it be best to simply cast it regardless figuring that under 60psi, the alumilite will be forced into any holes, cracks and exposed defects and bond the fragments of wood together so it is less likely to fail when turning as weak spots are likely to have alumilite inside?


just a thought.
 

1080Wayne

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I would cast it , but Alumilite may not penetrate hairline cracks well . Be prepared to CA them before turning . Look forward to seeing your cross grain turning . No idea how it will look . Might not be bad idea to use thin CA on that as well if hairline cracks are present . Running a bead of thin CA across the face grain will soon show if cracks are present .
 

PatrickR

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I would agree. A slow setting thin viscosity resin would be ideal. Ive used royal palm for this and it penetrated the crack completely. But if alumilite is what you have use it and see.
 
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As this is a hobby, I don't get onto the lathe as much as I would like. seems that life and family responsibilities seem to get in the way of having fun.


I did manage to cut off two pieces from each end of the casting. I drilled one of them for a Sierra pen, as that seems to be my personal favourite. The drilling process was much easier than the past times. I don't know if that is just that I upgraded to a much better drill press, or that dilling is now going side grain rather than end grain, so it would make perfect sense.


I used some 5min epoxy and put it onto the lathe between centers and turned it round. From what I can see right now, I think the Snake patterning effect on the grain is totally lost when cut this direction. Not to say that the grain pattern showing doesn't look nice, but I don't think that you'd know it was snakewood unless someone told you it was. I will try and get a better photo of the progress piece when I have some more time. My iPad doesn't work all that well and an out of focus picture doesn't do anyone any good.
 
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