Wood Combinations

[Randy Simmons]

First, The back story:

So, I recently acquired a bunch of exotic burl wood. In turning them, I managed to break one or four, which left me with some random bodies and end caps. All from the same pen kits, almost none of them matching. So I figured, whatever, I'll just pair them all up and see how they look. Long story short, pretty much all of them looked magnificent. A few looked a bit odd, but I managed to sell them anyway.

Now for my question:

What's best?? My favorite combination to date is honduran rosewood burl and Thuya burl (a dark red on golden brown). What sorts of woods fit together in a 2-part pen based on their grain, color, etc.? Or what woods look cool in a single blank that's glued together?

I thought this would be a good opportunity to ask and for others to share. Thanks!!
(pictures are appreciated!)

Randy

 

[Ulises Victoria]

(pictures are appreciated!)

Randy

Indeed!!! Could you post some photos of your pens???

 

[triw51]

I would like to see them also

 

[Randy Simmons]

Thuya Burl and Honduran Rosewood Burl, Currently for sale (as of 7/10/12) for 149.95 on my website.

 

[dansills]

I'm speechless!

 

[Randy Simmons]

apologies for the massive picture, I am working on resizing as we speak.

My camera does this by default, I am also a hobbyist photographer, lol.

 

[Jim Burr]

Wow!! Big pic! My experiance with HRB is that it wil crack and split and move until it's 35 years old...and that's after being made into a pen!

 

[Curly]

Here you go.

If you haven't figured out how to resize your pictures just shoot them at the lowest resolution setting the camera has. Or send it to yourself as an email from your photo program and it will resize it automatically.

 

[Randy Simmons]

Appreciate it Curly! I had just finished messing with it in iPhoto when you posted ;D

 

[Curly]

Appreciate it Curly! I had just finished messing with it in iPhoto when you posted ;D

Oh if I hand known you were playing with a Mac I would have told you that you can do it 2 ways. Probably other ways too.

[1] In iPhoto select your picture and along the top of the screen select File > Export > in the Size area select Medium and then click the Export button > pick where you want it to go (I put it on the desktop) and click OK.

[2] If the picture is saved full size on your desktop double click on it and it will open in Finder > Tools > Adjust Size > Fit into > 800 x 600 > (you will see the size in kilo bytes) > click OK

Windows users can now wake up and continue with the thread. :wink:

 

[Jarod888]

Very nice looking pens! One of the easiest ways there is to compress pictures is to use Microsoft Office.
I didn't see you reply about using a Mac. I will leave my suggestions for PC users.

1. Copy the picture to your desktop.
2. Right Click on the picture and select the option "Open With". A new option tab will open.
3. Select the option for Microsoft Office.
4. The picture will open in the MS Office Picture editor.
5. On the tool bar, select the Picture option and scroll down to "crop"
6. You should now see a couple of small crosses or right angle symbols in the corner of the picture. Drag these inward. This will remove parts of the picture you don't want.
7. Click on the save button. The picture will automatically resize to the new cropped size.
8. Select the Picture option from the toolbar, and select the compress option.
9. A toolbar will open on the right side of the picture.
10. Place a radial button in the "document" option. This will resize and compress the picture at the same time. The benefit of this is that your picture will not take up so much real estate on peoples desktops. An added benefit is that the much smaller size uses far less bandwidth so your pictures will remain for a longer period on picture hosting sites.
11. Save the picture.
You can now upload the picture and share it. If you have any questions, feel free to pm me.

If you do not have Microsoft Office, the easiest alternative I can think of is MS Paint. You would have to cut a section of the pen out and complete some more manipulation of the picture in order to resize it.