A Couple More Phesant Wood Pens

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Larryreitz

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I'm really liking this wood. Pictured below are a Caballero in TiGold hardware and a SPW Longbody with TIGold and Gunmetal. Both are finished with Glu Boost. C&C appreciated as always.
 

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Lucky2

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Pheasant wood, that's a new one on me, how is it to work with? Where and how large do they grow to be, are they an ornamental tree? The pens you've made are gorgeous, I love the look of the wood.

Len
 

Larryreitz

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Pheasant wood, that's a new one on me, how is it to work with? Where and how large do they grow to be, are they an ornamental tree? The pens you've made are gorgeous, I love the look of the wood.

Len
Hi Len,
I can answer the first question. I found it to turn easily. If anything, I found that I had to be careful that I didn't turn too much off and lose a piece of a blank. When close to final diameter I finished them off by sanding with 220 grit. According to a page I wound in Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senna_siamea, it can grow up to 60 ft. Short read but interesting. BTW I got mine from George's Bits of Timber, AKA Robutacion.
Larry
 

Larryreitz

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OK I either can't spell or can't type. It is Pheasant wood, not phesant wood. I guess since I made the error on more than one occasion I can't spell.
 

robutacion

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G'day Larry,

Thank you for the plug, most appreciated.

Those are the first pens I've seen made with the blanks I sold here and you made some beautiful pens from them, they are all now listed on my web-store so everybody has easy access to them if they so wish.

In fact, I was very surprised as how rare this wood is to find, I'm yet to find any shop that sells this wood so, I'm making the best I can with the supply I have had these last few weeks and hopefully, I can continue to get but that we will see one this is for sure, I was guaranteed the supply of these sticks to make 1,000 pen blanks so that is very good and hopefully will last me for a while as contrary to most people would think that I would be trying to sell them all as fast as I can but that is not the case nor has been the case of all my woods from the #1 up to now the #99. Some of the woods on my list have been low in stock from the very beginning, some species I never got more than a couple of hundred blanks and that was 14 years ago so, I stop listing them and reserved them for the large mix packs which contain 1 blanks from each of the species listed, all these years later and I'm starting to run out even for those packs so and when that happens, those numbers will be marked as "no longer available" until one day if I get lucky to find/get a little bit more of it.

Here is a link with so info about this wood https://www.google.com/search?q=Phe...46j0j46j0l2.5524j0j8&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

With this Pheasant wood, one of the things that impress me is the end-grain, 044.JPG regardless if the wood is a light or dark colour that end-grain layers layout is just stunning, unfortunately, the wood I get has the dimensions of 55x4x2cm but if I had/could get a piece/board 130mm wide and at least 21mm thick I would be cutting lots of cross-cut blanks and stabilise them for further strengthening, I may make a glue-up I doubt we would be able to see the joints, I will try and report.

Cheers
George
 

Larryreitz

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New to pen turning and was wanting to know about wood stabilization. What is the best method. I only bring this up since you mentioned it.

Just to be clear the pens I've pictured are not made from stabilized wood. In the post above, George was speculating about stabilizing some blanks cut across the grain. Most of us use Catcus Juice to soak the blanks in a vacuum chamber. After atmospheric pressure is restored the blanks are allowed to remain in the liquid to be sure that as much as possible gets into the wood. Then it is heat cured. Lots of info in the library or you can look up TurnTex online. Curtis will tell you all you need to know.
Have fun
 

robutacion

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New to pen turning and was wanting to know about wood stabilization. What is the best method. I only bring this up since you mentioned it.
There is a lot that can be said about wood stabilisation, there 2 main types used, the industrial and the DIY that we are doing using the Cactus Juice. The Industrial wood stabilisation uses enormous tanks/vessels and pressures up to 5,000 PSI, the DIY method is made using small vacuum chambers where the wood is inserted into and filled with the CJ, there is a vacuum pump that removes all air from the chamber and wood allowing the CJ to penetrate after that the wood is cooked in the oven to cure/harden the CJ. In general terms, wood stabilisations give the wood liquid penetration protection, hardens the wood and gives the wood a semi plasticised properties without changing its appearance.

Not all woods allow stabilisation, not with the DYI process, any extremely dense and oily woods don't work well, wood stabilisation is particularly important as wood treatment/protection reason knife makers only use stabilised woods, in the pen turning world, stabilised wood can be extremely important on woods that are very soft/spalted and almost unworkable, with other regular woods, stabilisation gives the wood more strength, easy workability and easy to finish.

Hope this helps,

Cheers
George
 
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