Desert Iron Wood - revisited...

[Marc Phillips]

This wood made me jump through a lot of hoops this weekend!

I learned a ton though... Tools gotta be real, real, REAL sharp!

To get the skew sharp I wanted to get that wheel trued up on the wet sharpener, so had to go through all of that, and learned how to use that particular jig... got the skew sharp....

Take light cuts.... I guess I have gotten overconfident with the skew and I know I take heavy cuts with the thing.... I like the way the skew takes the wood down pronto, and guess I got a little carried away and blew out some nice DIW blanks in the process...

Use CA during the process... I already knew this, but didn't think it was necessary for "iron" wood... Oh well, I learned a lesson!

Anyhoo, this is my first Americana... with DIW and a CA finish...

It's a learning process.... a few lessons I will definitely remember!

Thanks for all your help on this...

 

[ed4copies]

Looks GREAT, Marc.

But, don't worry, you WILL make the same mistakes again. Just hope you only ruin ONE blank before the brain "kicks in" and reminds you of the "forgotten steps".

I keep saying I will make notes and keep them on file, but I never DO it. So, from time to time, we "reinvent" the turning process for ourselves.

Good thing we're not paid by the piece, huh????

(Wait a minute, I have to SELL a pen........................)

NEVER MIND!!

 

[PaulDoug]

DIW is beautiful for pens. Looks like you made it worth the trouble. Very nice.

 

[papaturner]

Awesome....success is sweet,even sweeter when it looks like your pen.

 

[randyrls]

Good to see it finally came out. Very nice, and my wife liked the pen too! I think I have a few DIW in the blank box....

 

[Russianwolf]

Good to see you got it to work for ya.

since I've started drilling on the lathe, I've gotten to the point where I turn the blank round before drilling. That were there is a lot more support in the center while you're knocking those edges off.

I also recall someone here mentioning that it help them select where to cut the blank for best appearance.