matt.mackinnon
Member
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
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