Snakewood-Revisited

[Randy_]

I am just getting ready to do my first snakewood pen. Was reading, last night, a piece on the wood and there was a comment about it not being very suitable for veneer as it tended to have a lot of cracks indigenous to the wood.

How prophetic............

I cut a blank in half several days ago and trimmed the corners so it had an octagonal cross-section. Today, I was marking the ends of the blank in preparation for drilling and was using one of those little high intensity lamps for illumination. While manipulating the blank, I noticed a peculiar glint of light coming from one surface so I got out my loupe for a closer look and surprise, surprise......I was looking at a crack in the wood!!!

I had looked that piece of wood over, carefully, several times under "normal" illumination and never noticed a thing. Under any other circumstances, I would have drilled the blank and not discovered that crack until after drilling or turning or maybe not at all. Somewhere down the line the crack would have been detected and an assumption made that something in the crafting process (heat?) was the cause of the crack......when, in fact, the crack had been in the wood from the get-go. (Note: This is wood that had been sitting in a shop for several years and should have been very stable.)

I wonder how many other cracked snakewood blanks had existing defects that were later attributed to the crafting process??

I was going to use this blank for a Sierra Click kit; but the location of the crack is such that it will intersect the hole for the Sierra tube. I'll have to look around at my stock of kits and see if I can find one with a smaller tube that might work or maybe I will just break the blank apart at the crack and glue it back together and use it for a personal pen?? :frown:

 

[fiferb]

Have you tried to CA the crack for stability? If it is that small you may not even notice it. You may also want to turn it, check it with your loupe throughout the process, and stabilize with CA as you go. No reason it shouldn't turn out to be a fantastic pen if you're ahead of the miniscule cracks.

 

[abaum]

I think Snakewood just likes to crack. I made a cigar style pen two yrs ago with Snakewood. When I was done, there were no visible cracks. As of this morning, there are at least four that run almost the entire length of each section and a number of minor ones are also visible.

 

[Randy_]

Have you tried to CA the crack for stability? If it is that small you may not even notice it. You may also want to turn it, check it with your loupe throughout the process, and stabilize with CA as you go. No reason it shouldn't turn out to be a fantastic pen if you're ahead of the miniscule cracks.

Bruce: Thanks for the comments; but I don't think that is going to happen.

Don't know if you have ever had any snakewood or not; but it is an extremely dense, tight-grained and seemingly oily wood. It looks to be one of those woods that will polish up very well without any sort of finish needed other than fine sanding and buffing. I don't think the wood is porous enough to soak up enough CA for effective stabilization. The crack that I see is so tight I don't think even thin CA will wick down into it and give a good bond. Looks to me like the only way to repair a crack would be for it to be wide enough to accept CA and then close the glued crack with a clamp of some sort. And even that kind of a repair may not hold if the wood is as oily as it appears to be??

As I wrote the above I had a thought and took a sort break.............. What I found out is that snakewood is another one of those unusual species of wood that doesn't float!! I don't recall that fact ever being mentioned on IAP before although I may have just missed it???

Anyway, the whole reason for me making up some of these snakewood pens is to test some ideas about alternative construction techniques to see if the cracking problem can be avoided. I wanted to make up a few pens to put out in the field for testing; but don't need to use a blank that is already known to be cracked.

Guess I will have to do the best I can with this one.........
I can always gift it out to a BIL that I don't much care for.:biggrin::biggrin:

Just kidding..........think this blank will go into the scrap bin for a while. I'm sure I will come up with a use for it in the future.

 

[fiferb]

Randy, send it to me. I'll be happy to test my CA stabilizing theory on it.:biggrin:

 

[KenV]

Paint the tube black, or use a pre-blackened tube and plan on repair. CA will fill cracks by wicking. Your CA finish will tie all the cracks together- Substitute ebony and use the same process.

Still nice pens -- just a challenge to keep from having separatons -- some still want them even with the risks. I warn folks, and offer to repair cracks if they happen.

 

[workinforwood]

Split the blank in four sections and glue a veneer in between. Choose a wood that is soft and expandable. The crack being cut away while splitting the blank. In my head of reason..I agree with you about the CA not really sticking that well, certainly not good enough to prevent the crack from opening more if it wants to. I think that once the crack is removed, and by placing a softer wood in between like a maple or walnut, in the future if the blank wants to expand or contract, it will be able to pull on the segments/veneer rather than pulling itself apart resulting in a crack. The veneers will be able to stretch or shrink a bit without pulling apart because they are more pliable. That's my theory. And..because the segmentation is done the length of the pen, the snakewood will still be able to display it's character.

 

[Randy_]

.....Still nice pens -- just a challenge to keep from having separatons -- some still want them even with the risks. I warn folks, and offer to repair cracks if they happen.

Hey Ken: I'm making these pens in an effort to find a construction method that will reduce or eliminate the cracking problem. Otherwise, I will just not use this particular wood. I don't want to mess with having to repair a bunch of pens that crack after moving to new owners.

Russ Fairfield made a post some time ago concerning his theories about cracking snakewood pens and stated that he had little or no problem with cracking pens. There have been a few other crafters who have the same experience. Either those guys are just plain lucky or they know something the rest of us don't. I would prefer to believe the latter.

 

[Randy_]

Split the blank in four sections and glue a veneer in between......

Interesting idea, Jeff. I'll have to give that some thought.

 

[Randy_]

Here are the comments Russ made some time ago. I see now that they are more directed at ebony than at snakewood; but I think the same principles might hold true for both woods.

http://www.penturners.org/forum/showthread.php?t=19476&highlight=snakewood

 

[Draken]

What I found out is that snakewood is another one of those unusual species of wood that doesn't float!!

I think I'll file that tidbit of info away for next year's BB Trivia contest...

 

[wdcav1952]

James, here is some more ammunition for the Trivia Contest:

http://www.architecturals.net/facts-about-wood-and-trees/

 

[maxwell_smart007]

I didn't think Snakewood would be more dense than Lignum Vitae...in fact, I wonder if that's correct...

 

[Randy_]

Andrew; I just did a real quick run at the Internet for the SG of Lignum vitae. found sites that called for the SG to be anywhere from 1.09 to 1.39. most seemed to be less than the 1.3 quoted for snakewood.

Don't know if the SG of Lv is hard to measure or if there is that much variation between different individuals of the species; but, apparent, at least some Lv is less dense than snakewood. Don't know that I have ever held a sample of Lv; but I can remember when I picked up a piece of snakewood for the first time and noting how dense it seemed to be.

 

[wdcav1952]

It is better to create than to learn! Creating is the essence of life.
Julius Caesar

 

[neurotictim]

What kind of time-frame does the cracking normally take place?

I made a snakewood pen as a gift for a friend of mine who absolutely LOVED the appearance of it, au natural.

Pardon the rudimentary photo, I'm getting with a REAL photographer to set up a picture solution... I'm one of those "necessary evil" kind of guys...

Anyway, should I tell him to expect this pen to crack? It's sanded down to 2K, then clay bar, then polished down to 12K MM, and I didn't notice any cracking.

 

[Randy_]

I've seen posts where the pen cracked within a few days of the crafting process and others where it was on the order of a year before the crack occurred and, of course, there are pleanty of pens that never crack.

It is probably a good idea to warn your customer about the possibility; but I wouldn't make a big deal out of it because you might be one of the lucky ones who does not have a pen crack.

 

[neurotictim]

Sweet. Good to know, thanks.