My First Post

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Fuzzy63

Fuzzy63

Member
Joined
Oct 8, 2018
Messages
321
Location
Montpelier, Indiana
I've been a member for awhile but this is my first thread. I wanted to share this pen I made from a cat tail out of the creek. It was slow to turn because of the texture. Any feed would be helpful. The picture was taken with my iPhone so I no the quality is the greatest.
 

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Welcome and nicely done. Never would have occurred to me to wade into knee deep muck to grab some cat tails to turn. Now you need to get some Cat Pen kits. 🐱🐈
 
That's amazing! It looks awesome. Can you share how you stabilized the seed head (I am assuming it's the seed head), so that it stayed together as you turned it?
 
Very interesting. I too would be interested in how you prepared it before turning. I remember collecting a few when I was a kid. They were cool until they opened up and make a mess. I hope your pen doesn't decide to do that!!!
 
Yes, it is just the seed head. I put them in cactus juice under vacuum. Baked in small oven for 2 1/2 hours. As for the turning aspect. I turned about 1/8 inch off the diameter then put 3 coats of thin CA. Turned some, and repeated the process till I got the diameter that was needed.
 
Very cool! Love cattails, and this looks very interesting. I'm curious how the vaccume stabilization affected the heads...they didn't expand and fray or anything like that with the cactus juice?
 
To answer your question on the stabilization process, it didn't affect the seed heads at all. The only thing I noticed they soaked up a lot more cactus juice. More than normal. I'm guessing because the inside of the cat tail is like fuzz and all the little dots are the seeds.
 
Fuzzy63 said:
To answer your question on the stabilization process, it didn't affect the seed heads at all. The only thing I noticed they soaked up a lot more cactus juice. More than normal. I'm guessing because the inside of the cat tail is like fuzz and all the little dots are the seeds.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I imagine there is a lot of air in a cattail head. Good to hear the things don't explode when all that air is sucked out! :P Did you reduce pressure at a normal rate, or throttle it and take it slowly?
 
I just reduced the pressure slow. The vacuum took about 8 hrs. to get rid of the bubbles. I let soak in the juice overnight then put them in the oven next morning.
Gary
 
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