Spalted Hackberry Black Ti Jr Gent

[shawnmhill]

I figured since I couldn't build an ark, I would play in the garage. It's raining like %$#@!! This spalted hackberry was enjoyable. Turned nicely. Wet sanded 400 & 600. Applied 10 coats of thin CA and MM to 12000.I know 10 coats seems a little much but I'm using thin CA and I want to build up slowly. Finished off with Hut and Ren. Thanks for looking and all comments welcome.

 

[IPD_Mrs]

I really like the look of the spalted hackberry with the kit that you used. I don't think you are over doing the amount of CA you are using. You want to have a nice finish that really shines when you are done and offers a nice bit of protection for the pen.
I often use a fair number of CA coats when doing a pen - however one comment I would make is that your picture looks like the pen is undercut (at least on the bottom portion) and if you are using several coats of CA you will want to cut the pen a bit smaller than the needed finished size. I typically go about .03 to 05 below what I want the finished size to be and then build that back up with CA.
While some might argue that is a lot of CA - it is a VERY good protection. I had a customer run a few hundred dollar DIW burl through his washer (accidentally left in pocket of his pants) that had this type of finish on it. He did this because he had clipped the pen over the edge of his pocket and the cap had come undone wicking the pen ink all over the pants - in his frustration he threw them in the wash.
After being covered with ink and then run through a washing machine the pen looks as good today as it did the day we finished it for him. He did have to get a replacement nib redone and ground back to his specs for it - but that is minor costs compared to what it would have been to get another pen made!

Mrs.

 

[maxman400]

It looks Great, I always use between 8 to 10 coats of thin CA.

 

[jttheclockman]

The pen looks great and outside of the few dust specs the photo looks great too. Thanks for showing.

 

[shawnmhill]

It is a pain in the butt to keep the duet off my black mirror board. Any suggestions?

 

[jttheclockman]

It is a pain in the butt to keep the duet off my black mirror board. Any suggestions?

Sorry I have none. I tried the black look and went away from it for that reason. Too much work to take a photo of a pen. Good luck with it and again nice work and thanks for showing.

 

[MesquiteMan]

Edit the dust spots out in post processing. I use Corel Paint Shop Pro X2 and it has a salt and pepper filter. I have it set (after lots of trial and error) to remove dots that are the size the dust specs are. It takes 99% of them out perfectly with very minimal hand work. That and cropping are the only post processing I do on my photos but cleaning up the dust does make the pic look nicer!

Good job on the pen, BTW. Is that some of the wood you got when you came for a visit? You do realize you forgot half of the wood I gave you here don't you? Just means you will have to come back for another visit to pick it up!

 

[MesquiteMan]

Shawn,

Here is your pic ran through my salt and pepper filter and nothing else. Just one click of the mouse and that was it.

Before:

After:

Lost just a little bit of detail on the pen but that could also be attributed to re-saving a jpeg file since they loose quality every time you save them.

 

[toddlajoie]

Curtis, I'm not familiar with Corel, but if it has an option to paint back in from the history, I would suggest running your filter (it does a great job on the dust!!) them "painting back" the pen and the rock from the previous history state (before the filter was run, Photoshop has this tool, the History Brush, so I'd expect Corel to have it too.). This will bring back the detail, contrast, and texture of the pen and rock. The difference in contrast and texture between the 2 images (looking mainly at the rock and darker areas of the pen) is much more than I would expect from just re-saving the image...

 

[SDB777]

Hey, if it hadn't been raining, it would have probably been really HOT!

Great looking pen, and as others have said 10 coats of thin CA will work just fine. Might want to give Monty a call and get some thick CA from him...that stuff replaces 4 coats of thin in one pass(JMHO).



Scott (the black background gets me too) B

 

[toyotaman]

Very nice pen but I have a question about the wet sanding part.Do you add some coats of thin CA before wet sanding it,and did you use accelorator?
Donny

 

[shawnmhill]

Thanks Curtis! I will be working on that. Still on that huge learning curve. I have tried the thicker CA but I feel I can control the "ridges and thickness" easier if I just take my time and use the thin. BTW, how do I get a hold of Monty for some CA?