Australian Saltwater Croc Jaw Pens

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Dai Sensei

Dai Sensei

Member
Joined
Jan 14, 2009
Messages
482
Location
Gold Coast Queensland Australia
I started many months ago when I saw an Alligator jaw pen here. I thought I could do that, but with Australian salt-water croc jaw bones, but unfortunately it's not so easy in Australia :frown:. I rang up a friend from Darwin who works at a croc farm, he said he may have some, but I'd need to arrange the permits. Yes, in Australia they are protected, so you need permits to send them and another permit to receive them :mad:. I few months later, and with all the necessary permits, I had a dozen jaw bones to play with. My friend was also interested in selling my final high end pens at the park shop, should be very popular with the asian tourists
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These jaw bones are from the crocs bread for meat/skins/teeth/bones etc, not from wild ones, so are only 1.5m long when slaughtered. Not very big and full of holes from veins or similar, and hollows natural to the jaw shape. Drilling to get solid bone is very difficult for the smaller pen kits, impossible for the high end larger kits.

I started filling the teeth holes with coloured resin, then casting the remainder on clear resin. I found there were too many holes and hollows, filled with clear resin exposed after turning, so went to complete casting with a suitable coloured resin.

I finished 2 Cigar pens, one with 24krt gold filled resin, the other with my blood red resin, and a Sierra with the blood red resin. I few issues I had to overcome with the gold, and a few others with the red, but a good learning experience. These are so my friend can take his pick, a little thank you for the effort at his end.

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I have now cast more blanks using the largest pieces I had in gold for a couple of Cambridges, and as these are the largest I have, jaw bones cast back to back for a Majestic (like worthless wood croc bone blanks :biggrin:). They are drilled ready for the tubes, hopefully I get a chance to turn them next weekend.

Cheers
 
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Nice job with some tough material to work with. Unless you get the jaw from a really big critter, it's tough to get a good blank out of the american version too. But worth it if you can managed.

Hang in there, you'll get it.
 
Very nice pens!! I've turned one Gator pen but never a crocodile. Was it hard to turn especially with the possibility of accidentally catching one of the tooth sockets. Smelled, I bet.:eek:. Regards, Doc
 
Great job on those. :good::good::good:
The bones look a lot smaller than the alligator bone I use.
You should be able to get a good price for them at your friend's shop.
 
First-rate looking pens. I like them all, but I like the blood red cigar the best. Thanks for sharing.
 
As I would have guessed they are awesome and sure look like their North American cousins. Great job on the casting...
 
Truly amazing! I love the idea and story behind pens like this and the effort put into turning and finishing them. I had an idea of casting lizard bones, but I have to wait to make it back to Florida where they are all over the place and being caught and killed by cats.

Great pens!!!
 
Thanks for the comments. Just cast a few more tonight, this time in bright blue, so I have quite a bit of work to do next weekend :rolleyes:

wizard said:
...Was it hard to turn especially with the possibility of accidentally catching one of the tooth sockets. Smelled, I bet.:eek:. Regards, Doc
Click to expand...

Definately smelled :frown:. I used a full gas mask set-up to work the bone, crocs have all sorts of strange bacteria in their mouths, so didn't want to catch anything.

The bone seamed to be of similar hardness to turn as the resin so no problems, but drilling was a different matter, the resin was definately harder.
 
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