Cypres Wood For Pens?

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William Young

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Wynndel, British Columbia, Canada.
Someone from Tenessee sent me a nice boxfull of cypress wood. Some is big enough for turned boxes and a few larger projects and some pieces are 3/4" thick and just right for turning pens. There are no cypres wood trees were I live and I have never even seen a piece of it for sale around here. It has some pretty coloring.
The grain is predominent but also faily straight . Perhaps I should cut the blanks on an angle to the grain?
Are there any surprises I should look forward to with turnig this wood? I had never seen it before this arrived let alone turned any of it.
W.Y.
 
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Here is a picture of it. The one with the coarse grain on the left , I will just cut into 3/4" x 3/4" strips and it might make some interesting looking pens if the wood will be suitable at all for turning.. For the straight grained one on the right I will try some cut straight and some on the bias. I want to send the person that donated the wood a gift made from it .
I am busy with some orders for large fretwork clocks and some large lathe turnings at the moment but I want to get around to trying this wood as soon as possible. When I do, I will post a picture of how it turned out.
Thanks rifleman for your comments. It doesn't sound too promising for this wood.
Thanks for any suggestions and/or experiences anyone here has had with this wood.
W.Y.

Cypress.jpg

W.Y.
 
William,
I have turned a fair amount of cypress, as well as cypress knees. The grain is rather plain, and the wood is relatively soft, but I have never had any tear-out or breakage. Cut cross grain it livens up some, and also cut at a 45 or so degree angle looks good. I turned most of mine upon request as a Louisiana souvenir. Amboyna it isn't, but it has its charm. There are a couple of cypress knee pens on page two of my album, not my best photos, I'm afraid.

Hope this helps,
 
Mac;
Your picture taking capabilities is fantastic. Those look great. What is cypress "knee" ?

My curiosity was getting me about that cypress wood that was sent to me in the mail . I wanted to see how cypress wood turns because I had never even seen a piece before this.
It turned real good. No problems at all . I started after lunch and then part way through there was a 2 hour power outage and I went back at it after that.
The grain in those three actually shows a lot better than what it does in the picture.
Centre bands from top to bottom are pink ivory, purpleheart and aspen.
Excuse my poor picture taking, I find pens to be among the hardest things to photograph properly.
I tried scanning them and the grain pattern was stunning but they just showed dull with no gloss at all. So I went to plan B and used my camera.

W.Y.

3%20Cypress%20Pens.jpg
 
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