Any suggestions?

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bgibb42

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Jun 6, 2009
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Hull, GA
I turned this blank a couple of days ago. When I started sanding it, I noticed that it felt a little funny under my fingers. Upon closer inspection, I saw that the blank had cracked and was flexing. Filled the crack with thin CA, and let it sit until this evening. Finished sanding the blank and as you can see, there is still an unattractive crack. Is there anything I can do to make it disappear, or is it a bust?
 

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Go ahead and move on. Anything I know of would still leave evidence of the crack and I would consider that unacceptable. If its any consolation, I've got many of these.

John
 
all is not lost...it is a design opportunity

remount it and turn off the cracked part. make the edge of the original blank square w/ the tube. drill a cut off from the same blank or another blank and glue it in (or several layers of complementary material) and re-turn it.

If it turns out ugly, then scrap it.
 
I thought that's what clips are for...Depending on the style of pen....

I thought about hiding it under the clip, but I'm not real thrilled about it because I will always know that it's there. I kinda figured there wouldn't be anything I could do about it. Usually, the blanks just blow apart on me and the pieces fly across the shop and that's it. Sigh....
 
If you know the crack is there even under the clip you will not be satisfied with any sale you may make. IMHO I would trash it, it cannot be fixed. A crack is a crack is a crack, dump it. :crying:
 
I would save it. I'd grab my power carver, mount up a carbide cutter and start hacking away at it. Go for something like a lightning bolt cut into it. Completely removing the crack and then some. Or, just grind out the crack and grind out some more imaginary cracks randomly here and there. Fill the cracks, lighting bolt, or whatever else you grind into it with inlace. After a good day of curing, spin the inlace down, polish it up and see what it looks like. Chances are it will be more exciting than what you have now. The blue is nice, the chatoyance is great but by being all one color it is a bit bland. It needs a deep red, brass, or silver color..maybe even a turquios fill would be good. I'm leaning towards crushed coral myself..that would give it some wow.
 
Oh..that's a nice crack..looks like a wave. Make a router template to cut a wave lengthwise across the pen. Do it while mounted on the late so you can use the index pin and cut several waves across the pen then fill all the waves with a lighter blue...Eagle style.
 
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