Tips for Glow Stonez?

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ghansen4

Member
Joined
Sep 3, 2017
Messages
135
Location
Texas
Tonight I started working on completing an order of pens made of Glow Stonez from Wood Turningz. The blanks are definitely turning differently from the AA that I am used to. I have tried both carbide and HSS but the material seems to come off as a powder/dust rather than chips or ribbons. Does anyone have advice for turning and/or finishing these blanks? Also, for my future reference what kind of material are these?
 

Skeleton2014

Member
Joined
Jan 24, 2013
Messages
497
Location
Lynnwood, WA. USA
Turned a couple of these blanks a few years back with my carbide tools. Yes, I did notice mostly just "powdery" material as opposed to ribbons coming off. I dry sanded with my usual sequence up to 600 grit and wet sanded with MM thru 12,000, then polished with Novus 2.
What I noticed was a difference in the glow intensity between the upper and lower barrels. I believe they were Jr. Gent II pens and I suspect the "glow" material was not evenly distributed throughout the blank material. This also happened on a couple of PSI's M3 Ti Mokume pen rods I turned around the same time. So, my recommendation is to use a pen kit where the upper and lower barrels are the same diameter (or as close as possible). Or, use a single tubed pen kit. Maybe others have noticed this uneven distribution of material within the blank or hopefully there have been improvements in casting during the past few years.
Jeff
 

TonyL

Member
Joined
Mar 9, 2014
Messages
8,904
Location
Georgia
I have turned many of these. They can be powdery, but turn and finish nicely for me. I have used carbides and HSS. I personally prefer HSS at 2200 rpms; I haven't used carbide in over 2 years (just a personal preference). I sand to 2000, polish/ buff using my 4 stage thing, and then add a coat of synthetic wax. Before I started using polishing and buffing compounds, I used moistened MM and Maguire's 105 and 205. I have found kids and adults to like them. Many of the adults do not even know they glow in the dark. They happen to like the patterns. There must be dozens of ways to approach this. Mine are just a two.

Much success!
 
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