first corncob pen

[low_48]

Well, it took several tries, but here's the first one. Thanks to other here for the inspiration!!!! I had never heard of or thought about doing this. I will want to make more for my brothers before Christmas. We were raised on the farm, and our Dad hauled these things by truck to a processing plant for a part-time job. The plant ground and seperated the components. The outside red was used for a sandblasting media, the center white was used in face powder, can't remember what the rest was used for. My Dad has been dead for 19 years, still thought of him while turning this. Wish he could have seen it.

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[Fred in NC]

That is gorgeous!

Now, would you be kind enough to share some technical details? Especially, how did you harden/stabilize it for turning. Thanks.

 

[low_48]

On the first attempts I used gorilla glue to put in the tubes. I lost the ends of the cob where it got thin. To hold the ends, I glued the tube in with thick CA glue and then saturated the ends with thin CA. I then turned all the red off the cob and maybe an 1/8" into the white middle section. At that point I covered the entire pen with thin CA and hit it with accelerator. That was it. The middle section actually turned great. It actually had curls coming off it with using the skew. I sanded with 220 and 320. I then put on 4 coats of medium CA for a finish. No sanding between coats. Sanded it with 320 dry then went through the several grits of Micro Mesh wet till I got to 12000. Polished with Flitz brass polish and a coat of carnuba wax.

Some advice on cobs; look for the runts, this variety of corn had the red go into the middle. When I snapped open the cob I could see some red around the soft center. Some other cobs I picked up were dead white all in the center. They are very boring when turned. Don't dry it in the microwave, or if you do, be very easy with it. One of the cobs I now have is brown in the center, started to burn!

Hope this helped, Rich