Anyone's thoughts on this one?

[jtdesigns]

This afternoon I received a call from a gentleman that wanted to give his boss a unique pen that represents their company. They manage the process controls for International Paper. I told him of the idea of using course sawdust encased in resin. He loved the idea but I don't know of a sure fire way to mix/cast this material, so if anyone has any ideas, I would appreciate it. His boss is a former metalsmith and my customer thought it would be a good idea to do some segmenting with aluminum. Thanks in advance.

Jeff

 

[workinforwood]

Well, sawdust encased in resin is easily available at any lumber yard, otherwise known as MDF. MDF is kinda ugly, but if you spin it, then it will look like hand made cardboard. The OSB is a real bugger to turn, but makes a really nice pen that looks like a spalted pine variety of wood. Curtis had or has some Lam beams, and those are really nice because they kinda look like a thousand toothpicks glued together. It would be rather silly to just take a bunch of sawdust and cast it in resin because the end result will just be an expensive little chunk of MDF. All three can be easily segmented with aluminim, you can scroll waves in it lengthwise and glue in thin sheets of metal or you can chop the blanks on a chop saw and glue in short pieces of aluminum.

 

[skiprat]

I'd print ( both sides)out several sheets of white paper, each with lots of their corporate logos and colours. Then shred it and cast it around chrome tubes.
The shredding should be coarse enough to pick out or recognise bits of the logo, particularly the little circle with the tree/arrow in it. You could still segment it with ally, but I think the chrome tubes would look good.

 

[BRobbins629]

Like Jeff said, saw dust may be to fine, but some good chips from turning may look better. Perhaps a mixture of dark and light woods. One test is worth a thousand opinions.

 

[purplehaze]

shredded paper

How about some shredded colored paper or whatever paper they make, similar to the money blanks.

 

[Monty]

For saw dust use particleboard, courser particles than MDF. For chips use OSB.
All will turn well IF you soak with thin CA as you turn.

 

[RAdams]

Get ahold of Todd (Oldwagon) here on IAP. He recently sent me a box of blanks and inside the box was the blank you are looking for! It is woodchips cast in resin. Looks pretty cool, but i have no idea how it is going to turn or look. I will post pics of it if you want, and if you like it, i will send it to you! Should fit nicely for your task, and the chips are seperated enough by resin that some tube would show, so silver tubes would give you the metal look as suggested.

 

[PenMan1]

Jeff:
Ths would be a good bit of work but really cool. International Paper is the world's largest supplier of pulp and paper. You could take about 150 sheet of different colors (and thicknesses -card stock) glue one on top of the other until you get to about 3/4 inch. Then you could cut them on the diagonal. Then cast the blank or coat it with CA. That would make a realy cool. multi -colored, multi-thicknessed "rainbow" . The cool part is, the IP guy will probally give you the paper "to insure authenticy". If this works well others in the company will want the IP "rainbow" pen. Just a thought?

 

[dgscott]

About a year ago I had a nice pile of pink ivory sawdust from some segmenting I was doing -- the color was very pretty and I thought it would look nice cast in resin, but the final product just looked muddy. The heat in curing changes the color, so play around with it to make sure you're happy.
Doug

 

[jtdesigns]

All great suggestions. I think I am going to go with either shredded paper or some wood turning particles. I just turned some ebony, birdeye maple, and cocobolo wine stoppers so I might use that. Thanks everyone.

Jeff

 

[ed4copies]

I don't KNOW anything about this, but I would test cocobolo and ebony, beforehand. How will their respective oils react with your resin??

 

[TBCbushings]

I did these for a company for Christmas time.

 

[low_48]

You can use a forstner bit to cut some curls for casting. Crush them up a little if you want them smaller. You could also use a Environ blank. They are made from recycled paper in a soy based resin. Here is an old post with some of my blanks and pens. I had the blanks marked down to $.50 at the MPG.
http://www.penturners.org/forum/showthread.php?t=27304&highlight=environ

Rich

 

[jason_r]

After reading this thread yesterday, I thought of this idea.

Merge the suggestions into a composite pen that starts as solid wood on one end, is layered through chips, "pulp", white paper, colored paper. Something that shows what they make and the steps it goes through.

 

[Rfturner]

I have used saw dust before to cast to fill in the gaps even when the sawdust is multicolored it looks about like mud, You can also try kitchen spices I found that they work the best for color variation I use them whenever filling in gaps, holes and checks in Blanks I turn that need it.

PSI does sell a blank that is multi colored wood as well

http://www.pennstateind.com/store/PKEZLAM20.html

http://www.pennstateind.com/store/PKEZLAM10.html

http://www.pennstateind.com/store/PKEZLAM40.html

http://www.pennstateind.com/store/PKEZLAM30.html

 

[KDM]

Well, sawdust encased in resin is easily available at any lumber yard, otherwise known as MDF.

For my $0.02 worth, MDF is a good portion of wood wih very little resin. The advantage of casting sawdust in resin is that you could have a good portion of resin with very little wood! I think it would look great and I'm going to get some clear resin to try it with. Maybe with "dust" from 2 or three different colours of wood swirled, but not too thoroughly.