Thanks for the feed back. I used a cheap peice of maple to experiment with. I would hate to blow a nice burl on the first shot.
As for the shape, it;s not the picture so much, I am also experiemtning on design. I am finding out thought that the simpler the design, the nicer looking the pen.
And the darker end was a mystery to me. I can only guess that it is the end grain soaking up more CA. Is that just a sanding issue? I only went up to 600. Should I go to 12000mm before finishing?