This is my first Jr Gent II and my first 2-piece capped pen. The Cork Tree Burl is from George's Bits of Timber and I stabilized using cactus juice. All C&C welcome.
Great work, Sam !!!! . That seems to be lovely wood, and I would also have expected it to require stabilization. Do you do that under vacuum ? .... or under pressure ? Do you use Cactus Juice ?
Very nice! Great looking pen and photos.
Poke around here and look at some that have the cap finial replaced with matching wood. I think it adds a nice touch.
Great work, Sam !!!! . That seems to be lovely wood, and I would also have expected it to require stabilization. Do you do that under vacuum ? .... or under pressure ? Do you use Cactus Juice ?
Thanks Mal. The wood was probably solid enough to turn without stabilization, but I feared that the finished pen would be susceptible to denting and cracking, that's why I chose to stabilize. It had the added benefit that it filled some small voids that were present in the wood. I did use cactus juice and vacuum using my homemade pickle jar chamber. It didn't pick up as much resin as some of the other woods, but still finished at about 1.6X dried weight, and turning indicated that it was quite solid throughout.
Great work, Sam !!!! . That seems to be lovely wood, and I would also have expected it to require stabilization. Do you do that under vacuum ? .... or under pressure ? Do you use Cactus Juice ?
Thanks Mal. The wood was probably solid enough to turn without stabilization, but I feared that the finished pen would be susceptible to denting and cracking, that's why I chose to stabilize. It had the added benefit that it filled some small voids that were present in the wood. I did use cactus juice and vacuum using my homemade pickle jar chamber. It didn't pick up as much resin as some of the other woods, but still finished at about 1.6X dried weight, and turning indicated that it was quite solid throughout.