Adventures with PR part II

Following on from my First PR thread, I've got some mica pigments. I think I'm in love again.

This was my first stab at a mica two colour swirl. It's nearly exactly what I'd hoped for:



(Click for enlargement.)

I haven't made a pen in a few months, but this blank



got made into a pen today. Sad story about this blank: I made them as a block of 6. I cut one off to make this pen. Then, I accidentally turned the block round 90 degrees and sliced it. The resulting blanks are barely long enough to make slimlines. I may have to make plain black bottom parts for these, or maybe perfume pens or other short kit. I took one of the stump blanks and hacked it up into little cubes and bedded those into brown solid PR. Just to see what it looked like. It looked like this:



(Click to enlarge.)

This one is quite similar, but I made it a nice chunky blank for a big fat kit.



(Click for enlargement.) I'm really very pleased with that one. It got made into a pen here.

Here, I just wanted to see how well the mica coloured PR would swirl with a similar solid colour. Not too shabby:



Much like my other blanks, these have been a dream to drill and turn, so the pigment hasn't affected that feature much.

I'm gonna have to start making pens now. My wife wants me to sell them, but I don't think I can find a market here. I'd be surprised if I made my money back.

perhaps the key is to make and sell blanks...............

mredburn said:

perhaps the key is to make and sell blanks...............

Click to expand...

I thought about that. There doesn't seem to be much requirement here in the UK and postage to US is a ball-ache. Maybe I should try to find a UK based pen turning forum...!

I knew the shipping would prohibit shipping to the U.S. but does it cost less to ship from here to the U.S. over there than it does to ship between countries in Euroupe? Are there any other suppliers of blanks over there?

KDM said:

Sad story about this blank ... The resulting blanks are barely long enough to make slimlines. I may have to make plain black bottom parts for these, or maybe perfume pens or other short kit.

Click to expand...

...eg Polaris...

Bedding PR in PR

I recently took up geocaching. This is a series of photos where I embed slices of colour PR in white PR to see if I can make a pen of the appropriate colours.

It worked quite well. You can see the little bits of wood I used to pack out the mould as the original PR shrunk. I suppose there must be stresses between the cured PR and the curing PR, but I saw no evidence of it while turning.

There's a brief discussion of geocaching and extreme pen swapping here...

The slices of PR:



Packed into the mould with spacers:



Pouring the white PR around it:



Curing:



Roughed round (this is actually the best view of the complete colours!!):



(Click for enlargement.)

Mounted on the lathe:



And (you'll be pleased to learn) there's a pen at the end of it:



(Click for enlargement.)

Man that is so cool. Never tried geocaching but I have read a lot about it.

KDM said:

This was my first stab at a mica two colour swirl. It's nearly exactly what I'd hoped for:

Click to expand...

...and now it's found a customer.