monophoto
Member
I'm working on a set of pens for family members as Christmas gifts. I had in mind to make a Cigar-style ballpoint for one of our sons, using african blackwood with maple inlays.
The wood turned beautifully, but the end product was very disappointing.
The process I have evolved to finish pens is to sand through the grits starting at 150, wiping down the pen with a dry paper towel between grits to remove dust. I got all the way to 800, and then polished the wood with kraft paper - it looked very nice.
The final step was to wipe the pen down with a paper towel soaked in denatured alcohol. That was a mistake! The DNA picked up the oil from the blackwood, and then soaked into the maple. The result is very ugly.
Fortunately, I have some spare tubes, so I am starting over with a different blank (olivewood) and no fancy inlays. But I definitely learned a lesson. My experiences using walnut inlays in maple have been very successful, but every time I've tried to put a maple inlay in an exotic wood, the maple has been stained excessively by oils from the exotic..
We learn something everyday!
The wood turned beautifully, but the end product was very disappointing.
The process I have evolved to finish pens is to sand through the grits starting at 150, wiping down the pen with a dry paper towel between grits to remove dust. I got all the way to 800, and then polished the wood with kraft paper - it looked very nice.
The final step was to wipe the pen down with a paper towel soaked in denatured alcohol. That was a mistake! The DNA picked up the oil from the blackwood, and then soaked into the maple. The result is very ugly.
Fortunately, I have some spare tubes, so I am starting over with a different blank (olivewood) and no fancy inlays. But I definitely learned a lesson. My experiences using walnut inlays in maple have been very successful, but every time I've tried to put a maple inlay in an exotic wood, the maple has been stained excessively by oils from the exotic..
We learn something everyday!