School Bus Pen

[Old Griz]

SWMBO is a school bus driver.... she wants me to make her a pen and have a school bus laser engraved on the top... what wood do you think would be closest in color to school bus yellow...
Believe it or not school bus drivers are nuts... they will buy just about anything that has a school bus on it...
This year I designed and cut 4 school bus ornaments for my wife on the scroll saw... she took the extras to a drivers luncheon and next thing I knew I had orders for 20 more of them...
So she is thinking that if I do one for her and she shows it off, they will order them...

 

[PenWorks]

Osage orange & put some transaparent yellow stain on it like the chesnut stain. That should get it yellow and still see the nice wood grain. Anthony

 

[Old Griz]

BINGO... thanks Tony... DUH... never thought of osage... and that chestnut dye is fantastic.. I used it to make my red hat set from some maple burl...

 

[PenWorks]

I died an osage with another transparent yellow stain I had, can't remember the brand, but it turned out YELLOW , YELLOW ! Good luck. Anthony

 

[tipusnr]

Funny..the first wood I thought of was Yellowheart!

 

[Doghouse]

What struck me was to pick a good bland white wood like holly or poplar. Then use the aniline dye or markers.

 

[KKingery]

That's a cool idea. You just never know where your next customer will come from!

 

[Guest]

Yellow heart

 

[melogic]

Tom,
Don't forget to post us a picture of the finished product.

 

[low_48]

Griz,
How about splitting the osage and putting a black veneer stripe down the side, like the line under the windows? Then maybe a little redheart inlay to duplicate the stop sign. Maybe that could be just a drill hole and a dowel to fill the hole? Or rows of walnut dowels down the side to duplicate the windows?
After I thought about this, it will probably just be an inside idea that only bus drivers might imagine what all those dots meant. Keeping it simple can always be the best way. Just some thoughts[]
Rich

 

[TheHeretic]

After seeing how yellow it really is a couple of weeks ago, my first thougth was yellowheart as well. Although I would also say Osage as well.

Now depending on how involved you want to get you could take some very figured maple and simply dye it to the orangeish yellow that school buses are. or do an Osage with ebony laminate strip. All the school buses I see are yellow with black.

Dean
Columbus OH