Bleaching Blanks

[montmill]

When you bleach a blank for a pen it looks like you shape the blank to size with the brass tube inside, then bleach it. Is that correct? Anxious to play with some blanks.

 

[sorcerertd]

I'm sure there's different ways to do it, and I've only done it once so far, but that's basically how I did it. I left it a couple hairs over the bushings and finished turning it down after it was rinsed and thoroughly dried to allow for swelling/shrinking.

 

[RDHals]

I've done it a few times, and yes you are correct. Drill and tube your blank first. Shape it down to size, do some of the sanding but not all. Then soak it in the beach till your happy with the affect. Take it out, rinse if you want I don't, and set aside to dry. The bleaching and rinsing will raise the grain a bit so you'll need to do some sanding. Good luck, let us know how it worked.

 

[montmill]

Sorry for the poor photo but this shows my first try. Wenge bleached 20 minutes.

 

[RDHals]

Well that turned out great.