Review: Karl's Weird World of Wesin

[GaryMGg]

I ordered some cast Worthless Wood from Karl Kuehn who has created a
combination of dyed Box Elder and PR he calls the Simbawa series.
In the raw, these blanks resemble portions of a world map with continents and oceans.
As a GIS (Geographic Information Systems) professional, it's something I had to have.
The question remained, how would they turn.

I turn pens exclusively with a skew and had no problem obtaining the results I wanted with Karl's blanks. The wood/resin combination requires a little bit of extra care as skew point down can cut really quickly across the PR->wood transition as the box elder is a soft wood. Karl informed me that'd be the case, and I had no problem maintaining my line with a sharp skew and sheering off ribbons from the blank.
Once I get a blank round, I tend to run across the high line of a blank with the skew's central edge shear cutting and doing that long ribbons were peeling off the blank and rolling along the mandrel.
The blank produces a beautiful looking pen.
The blanks turn wonderfully.
I'm proudly going to offer this new Mapping series as a premium pen.
Thanks Karl, job well done.
I heartily recommend these blanks.
[^] [8D] [8D]

 

[wood-of-1kind]

Picture(s)[?] Please

 

[GaryMGg]

is the blank I started with <s>; I'll post the pen in a while</s>
and this is the pair of pens I ended up with:

The two-tone Platinum is mine

 

[karlkuehn]

Holy cow, those turned out really neat! That's the first pens I've seen turned from those blanks. Very nice work, and thanks for the great review, I'm glad that they worked out so well for you.

Back to casting for me! I have to get another batch posted, my poor 'showroom' has been emptied out.

 

[Dalecamino]

Very nice work by both of you ! Thanks for sharing ! [8D]

 

[IPD_Mrs]

Thanks for posting this Gary. Personal taste I like the top one better. The green is a little darker and looks more like the Google satellite shots and the bottom more like the Google terrain shots. Either way they are awesome blanks and I think Karl has concoured the wraskly wesin.

Great job Gary, now go give the other one to your wife.[}]

Mike

 

[PrivatePens]

My hat's off to Karl. I have turned a couple of his blanks and am very happy with the results. I was worried about finishing. I like to wetsand acrylic and dry sand and finish wood. I "damp" sanded the blank up to 12000 MM. I finished with Ren Wax and was happy with the result. I'm getting more.

 

[GaryMGg]

Syd,
I used a CA finish on these because of the wood/resin combination at the surface.
Using CA, I could be certain the blank will feel smooth and hold up as well.
The blanks are fantastic though -- that's for sure.

 

[Ligget]

Well done on the review Gary, you made a couple of excellent lookin pens my friend![]

Karl, you da man![:0][]

 

[Bluewing92]

Sweet!!! Great looking pens.

 

[RonInSpringTX]

holy cow!!! those look fantastic Gary!!! first rate job & great looking blanks!!!

Ronnie

 

[RonInSpringTX]

Karl, would luv to get some of those if you have more!!! Tried your site but it doesn't appear to be up.


Ronnie

 

[karlkuehn]

Working on more as we speak! I've not got the site set up, I've just been selling on IAP - Business Classifieds

Here's my listing page:

http://www.penturners.org/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=33879&whichpage=1

 

[RonInSpringTX]

okie dokey Karl, thanx!!!