Ivory Pens

[Weim]

I Have been making pens now for a couple of years and have made about 50-100 pens for gifts and such. I told myself I wanted to make a really nice pen and wanted to make one out of ivory. I found a website that will seel the ivory for a reasonable price. The questions I have are.

-What would you use to sand or finish the ivory?
-Any suggestions or tips on turning the ivory blank?
-Does heat bother the ivory like tuning snakewood and certain woods that like to crack?

Thanks

 

[ed4copies]

Tim,

Ivory is a natural product (not a bulletin, I'm sure), but it IS very prone to cracking.

If you find a failsafe way to stop this, please let me know, I would LOVE to make ivory pens (and have made a couple with ivory inlay), but I don't want to sell a pen that has a good chance of cracking.

FWIW

 

[Russianwolf]

I have a pen that has a couple Ivory trim rings. Even doing my best to keep heat down (very sharp tools, light cuts, just working it for a minute then letting it rest, etc.) it still cracked several days later. And it didn't crack on the grain line either which surprised me.

The Ivory that I have is Mammoth, so it may vary a bit from elephant if that's what you can get. Being 10k years older may have some effect. So my only advice is to get some small pieces and work with it and see if you get the results you like before laying out big bucks for a solid blank.

 

[BRobbins629]

I have an ivory pen that I made several years ago and have not particulary treated it with more care than others and it hasn't cracked. In my opinion, one thing that contributes to cracking is stressing the ivory when pressing the fittings in the tubes which stretches the tubes. When I did mine, I sanded down the fittings so that they would just slide into the tubes and glued them in. I got this material in trade from someone who had numerous cracks. Anyway, I have not seen any ivory pen blanks crack when they are just sitting there before they are put into a pen; it only happens after they are stressed. They do make a beautiful pen and if you drill, turn and assemble carefully, you should have a nice heirloom.

 

[ed4copies]

I have an ivory pen that I made several years ago and have not particulary treated it with more care than others and it hasn't cracked. In my opinion, one thing that contributes to cracking is stressing the ivory when pressing the fittings in the tubes which stretches the tubes. When I did mine, I sanded down the fittings so that they would just slide into the tubes and glued them in. I got this material in trade from someone who had numerous cracks. Anyway, I have not seen any ivory pen blanks crack when they are just sitting there before they are put into a pen; it only happens after they are stressed. They do make a beautiful pen and if you drill, turn and assemble carefully, you should have a nice heirloom.

Bruce,

A couple other factors??? When the elephant (or ancient predecessor) was wearing the ivory, it was thick. We turn it down to real thin. Did the elephant realize he needed to keep all the circulation in ALL of his ivory??

I know VERY LITTLE about ivory, antlers, etc. So, I truly don't have opinions on most of this - but natural horns, antlers, etc have NOT treated me well.

Very open to education!!!

 

[devowoodworking]

I have done a few pens with 'Ivory', recently just finished up an African Elephant tusk in an 'Elegant Beauty' and prior to that used some 'Warthog Tooth' and also used some 'Hippo tooth' (very hard, almost impossible to cut with HSS tools!) Perhaps it was my ignorance with the material but none of it seemed brittle or gave me the impression it was prone to cracking, in fact quite the opposite

Ed, I have some leftover 'Warthog tooth' if you want to give it a try?:wink:

 

[BRobbins629]

Bruce,

A couple other factors??? When the elephant (or ancient predecessor) was wearing the ivory, it was thick. We turn it down to real thin. Did the elephant realize he needed to keep all the circulation in ALL of his ivory??

I know VERY LITTLE about ivory, antlers, etc. So, I truly don't have opinions on most of this - but natural horns, antlers, etc have NOT treated me well.

Very open to education!!!

I certainly don't have all the answers, but just trying to approach this with a little science and mechanics. Ivory piano keys are thin, are glued to another material, subjected to variations in temperature and humidity and do not seem to have the inclination to crack as often as I hear ivory pens. Same goes with pool cue tips which certainly get a lot of stress, but not stretching. A big difference I see is the radial stretch factor of the fittings in the tubes. I think the same holds true for other materials prone to cracking such as snakewood. Let it shrink before gluing to the tubes and don't stretch it after it is on the tubes and the probability of cracking goes down considerably. Couldn't hurt.

 

[ed4copies]

I like your piano key example. In fact, I have a set of keys Dawn bought for me. The ivory is REAL thin. But, no, it does NOT crack.


HHHUUUUUmmmmmmmmmmm, why not???????

 

[amosfella]

I have heard that mammoth ivory should be dried for about 3-5 years after it has been dug up to get a moisture equilibrium. Another guy I know of has suggested soaking the almost finished pen barrel in thin super glue under about 5 inches of vacuum overnight.

I think the problem comes from something that wants to move being forced against something that doesn't move.