tru stone questions

[preacherman]

I am slowly expanding the materials I use and just received a small lot of true stone blanks. I have never worked with any tru stone I have turned various acrylics and expect this to be similar just much harder, the cutting and drilling tipped me off to this. I have pink quartz and turquoise gold matrix blanks. I have a couple of questions.
1) do these blanks have a tendency to be translucent? Should I reverse paint?
2) how do you finish these types of blanks? I was thinking just micro mesh then a little polish at least that is how these are advertised.

Just looking to get a few pointers. I don't want to mess up these blanks. They look like they have potential to be very nice pens. Thanks!

 

[JustmeinMS]

Depending on the pen kit and how much material is left when turned they can be translucent. The pink most definitely would be IMHO. The gold matrix maybe not as much. But to be on the safe side I would reverse paint any light colors. I had the webbed turquoise that showed the tube sure as the world when I started Tru stone and now if its not a dark color, I immediately paint the tube and inside the blank after drilling.

 

[gbpens]

I have used only dark colors so I had no need for reverse painting. Wet sanding should be all you need in a finish. Tru-stone, manufactured by RT Research, will polish to a high gloss. There are two different hardness depending on which color you have. Some are about a 75-25 mix of pulverized mineral to acrylic while the harder pieces are 85-15. Check their site for more info.

 

[randyrls]

Always paint the inside of the blank before turning. Usually white, but the pink quartz would benefit from a pink undercoat.

The turquoise is one of the softer blanks, but I can't comment on the pink quartz.

Check out this member site. r and b crafts - tru-stone blanks

Trustone ranges from fairly soft to harder than a bankers heart. On some of the harder trustones I use a carbide tipped tool with a flat face.

 

[ashaw]

Pink quartz is very easy to turn. I have found anything with blue in it becomes harder to turn.

 

[76winger]

I've done several various colors the trustone material and generally I've observed the darker the material the harder it is to turn.

I've turned the pink one you're talking about and did it without reverse painting and it came out OK, but I would reverse paint the next time. I also did the banded ivory and it definitely needs reverse painting.

The dark blues, purples, blacks, etc. you really need carbide cutting tools unless you like sharpening a lot.

 

[ALexG]

1) I just paint the tubes and use epoxy with 1 drop of black or white
2) sand and cross sand from 150 to 12000 then Nova 2 (heavy scratches) and Nova 3 (light scratches)

and yes I ended up buying a carbide tip tool because you can't to a good job with an HSS except that you spend more time sharpening than turning

 

[preacherman]

Thanks for all the info. I have a wall street II that I was planing on turning today as a test with turquoise blank. I do have a carbide tool that I thought might be necessary rather than the hss tools I have.

 

[turncrazy43]

I would suggest the use of the Wall Street III. That kit as well as the Sierra Vista kits leave a little more meat at the end of the blank after turning so that there would be less chance of the tubes showing through.
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[toddlajoie]

Cigar pens also have a fair amount of material left after turning...

And the Mexican Agate is highly translucent... I mix red and brown modeling paint to get it as close to the color of the blank as possible and reverse paint, do the same color mixed into the epoxy too...

 

[preacherman]

Thanks for all the helpful comments. I turned what was a wall street III(I orginally thought it was a II) this evening and it turned out very nice. I'll post pics in the show off pen section of the forum.