Westminster Palace Oak - Beaufort Ink Leveche Kit

The wood is simple oak, but it was pulled from the Palace of Westminster (aka UK Parliament building, aka The building with Big Ben). It's a gift for a colleague who worked in Parliament. Beaufort ink Leveche pen kit in rose gold. I wanted to add some visual appeal to the oak, so I inlaid abalone shell in the cap and body. Finish is a melamine lacquer, which I prefer on historic wood pens because it provides some lustre and protection to the pen, but preserves the wood "feel" better than CA glue I think. We'll see how the melamine lacquer holds up. This is more of a "keep it on their desk" piece than a "daily use" pen.

Question for those more experienced: How can I prevent the very minor tear out in the 3 mm holes for the abalone inlay? I realize the key is always cutting with sharp tools to prevent tear out. The drill bit is so small I'm not sure I could effectively sharpen it. Suggestions? Alternatively, if I stabilized the wood with cactus juice, would that help avoid tear out on the edges of the holes? I know it's a small thing. The recipient won't notice, but I do, and I'd love to improve that. (Note the small hole next to the third abalone cabochon is a nail hole from the salvaged wood and not tear out. Initially I thought to hide it in the back, but then I liked the idea of putting some of the history of the blank in the front. If I could do it over again though I'd probably shift the inlay over a bit away from the nail hole. I think it distracts from the inlay.)

That abalone really looks good the way you laid it out. It really dresses up the plain wood nicely.

The best bet to prevent tearout is to put a scrap piece over and drill through that into the barrel. Not sure if I described that well enough. At least wrap a couple layers of tape around it first.

Very nice work, great looking pen!

I like it a lot the inlay sets it off. Good work.

Great pen. I really like oak, it is highly underrated.

To help with tear out maybe put some painters tape over the area you are drilling. Doing that helps prevent end grain from tearing when sawing so I imagine it could help reduce or prevent tear out when drilling. Another option may be to start with a small bit and work your way up. The last thing is buy a package of the smaller bits you want to have sharp ones on hand.

Slow speed will tear out wood fibers much more than very high speed. Below is a photo than an engineer friend took of an experiment some years ago:

I know some people who think that "faster" speed will tear it out worse but that is not so.

As mentioned in the above posts - use painters tape or add a thin scrap piece shaped to the top side of the blank, and then drill. A combination of speed and tape/scrap piece should do it.

How is the tear out on the lathe? I would think that you turn the blank until it is just round, then drill, then finish turning to size. A sharp chisel should cut the wood cleanly around the holes.
I haven't tried this yet, but it seems like that should work.

Fine Engineer said:

How is the tear out on the lathe? I would think that you turn the blank until it is just round, then drill, then finish turning to size. A sharp chisel should cut the wood cleanly around the holes.
I haven't tried this yet, but it seems like that should work.

Click to expand...

That's a good thought! I had turned the pieces to size and then drilled, but it makes sense that if you drill first and then turn it down, you could cut out the tear out with a sharp gouge/scraper.

well done looks great

Nice layout. My thoughts are basically what Jeff said about oversized blank and work your way down. But that can lead to problems as well for you would have to know how deep you need to drill to do what you want. Now are you laying the dots even with the top of the wood or are you drilling deeper and then filling with resin or CA? That could be the answer to the above problem. But to further throw things at you., I use a router because I have a platform set up to do those type things. I would suggest this is a perfect case for the use of brad point bits because they have a sharp outer edge and not a blunt edge,