A tale of two blanks

[Alan Morrison]

I experimented a bit with a basket weave pattern with mixed results.
Photographs here are:
Two blanks made yesterday....One blank that blew.....one finished pen, Etesia pen kit from Beaufort Ink.

 

[KenB259]

You nailed the one that turned out. I don't see any dust carryover. Looks like the end grain got you on the other one. When I'm creating a segmented blank, I try to never have end grain going across the blank, not always possible though. I like your design.

 

[Alan Morrison]

Thanks, Ken. I followed @mark james advice and applied a couple of coats of sanding sealer prior to sanding. I mostly do as you re. the end grain but not on this occasion. The finished pen looked ok, but I will give this design a couple more outings and try them with the end grain
side on. Accuracy is my issue.

 

[mark james]

You nailed the one that turned out. I don't see any dust carryover. Looks like the end grain got you on the other one. When I'm creating a segmented blank, I try to never have end grain going across the blank, not always possible though. I like your design.

I agree about avoiding end grain if possible. The only exception is if the end-grain is an actual design feature - quite nice. SteveJ has used it very nicely IMO. This is from SteveJ: A very old Photo...

 

[KenB259]

I agree about avoiding end grain if possible. The only exception is if the end-grain is an actual design feature - quite nice. SteveJ has used it very nicely IMO. This is from SteveJ: A very old Photo...

View attachment 319701

All extremely nice and inspirational.

 

[jrista]

I experimented a bit with a basket weave pattern with mixed results.
Photographs here are:
Two blanks made yesterday....One blank that blew.....one finished pen, Etesia pen kit from Beaufort Ink.

Bummer about the blowout...

Any idea why it happened? I've become rather obsessive about the sharpness of my tools these days. I've been turning some...well, coming from bowl turning originally, I'd call it "sidegrain" vs. "spindle." Sidegrain where you have an oscillation between endgrain and sidegrain to the tool against the wood, and spindle where the endgrain is at the ends and its all side grain against the tool. Most pen blanks are small spindles, but I've turned some olive wood blanks (that I picked up from someone on these forums, actually) that are more sidegrain cut, with the heartwood (I believe of a branch) in them, so there was some cracking too. With a very, very sharp roughing gouge, I was able to turn them without any issues.

 

[TDahl]

Very nice Alan. All of the segments lined up perfectly, and the finish looks great. Thanks for sharing.

 

[Alan Morrison]

Bummer about the blowout...
Any idea why it happened?

Hello Jon. I should have put on some ca glue as I neared the last stages just to hold as there was a lot of cross grain material. I think that would have prevented the blow-out.
Tools were sharp enough.
Alan

 

[Alchemist]

I agree with the other guys! No dust is tricky with all those different veneers. You pulled it off!! Nice work… hmmmm… I'm thinking it's been a bit since I did a segmented pen

 

[leehljp]

EXCELLENT Allen! The one that had tear-out - what was your lathe speed and what tool were you using? This is valuable information that helps down the road for even the experienced. Softer woods tear out more with scrapers than skews (but if the skew is on its side like a scraper, it too will cause tear out). That looks like soft wood by the way it tore out, so I am guessing.

Excellent work. Love it. Reminds me of Japan!