Hard Rubber for Turning

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Mike_O

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O\'Fallon, MO, USA.
I am trying to locate some red, black or mottled hard rubber suitable for turning. Does anyone know where I might be able to find some? Many antique pens used to be made of this material and they were quite nice looking.

Thanks for any help.

Mike O
 
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the only hting I can recall hearing about a hard rubber was fron old bowling balls. it was a while back on the yahoo group. but my memory may be getting it all twisted around also.
other than that I don't think I've heard of a source for hard rubber material.
 
For what its worth. Instead of hard rubber (which I have been unable to find), I experimented with some hockey pucks that I cut into blanks on the bandsaw. Here in Edmonton, hockey pucks are rather common, very cheap and available black, a kind of brownish orange similar to the colour of some antique pens that I have seen and a sort of royal blue.
 
Great ideas!!! I am sure that I can pick up an old bowlng ball for experimentation, and I have plenty of hockey pucks. I have played hockey my whole life.

I will give them a try.

Thanks,

Mike O
 
Have you searched google with the terms ebonite (bowling ball material) or vulcanite?

An Ebonite pen page is at:

http://www.swisherpens.com/catalog/products/conway-stewart-churchill-ebonite-lever-fill-fountain-pens-limited-to-500-pieces.htm

Maybe you can get an idea from the fact that a hard rubber would be around 90 such as the hard rubber heel of of a men's dress shoe?

a search for "mottled hard rubber" gets a number of hits on vintage pens, but no source.

a search for "swirled" "hard rubber" gives one ideas. Such as:
http://thepuppyshop.com/ropetugtoy.html

and interesting reading on pen history at:

http://www.io.com/~tyrbiter/history.html
 
I NEVER KNEW THE NAME OF THE MATERIAL IN A BOWLING BALL.I'LL HAVE TO BET THAT FILED AWAY IN MY CRANIUM SOMEWHERE.
 
Daniel - I know what you're thinking... Group buy of old bowling balls! [:)]

Just for fun, I searched the Y! Penturners archive (isn't that search great! [:)]) and "bowling ball pen" in the subject line got me 43 hits. Guess that's been done! Maybe old bowling shoes...
 
bowling ball Bulk Buy? I only have a mid size pickup. I'll have to pass on that one:)Can you imagine the postage charges.
Let's try Bowling lanes!!!. any one up to stripping up a few? I have dibs on one of the little arrows.
try searching for que balls or pool balls also someone made at least one out of them.
 
Mike,
If you're just doing bands or tips, you might check out your local thrift shop. Some of the older knife handles and pot handles were made of hard rubber and may be big enough for use . . and they're cheap.
Good luck
Denise
-snip-
 
Main Entry: eb·o·nite
Pronunciation: 'e-b&-"nIt
Function: noun
Date: 1861
: hard rubber especially when black

Bowling balls are made from Ebonite

Be careful when sawing through a bowling ball. There may be some things in there that are harder than you want.
 
Be even more careful if you are thinking about cutting up an old bowling alley for the wood. Yes, the planks may be glued together, but they were not clamped together during assembly; they were nailed. Many are nailed only, without the glue, and there are thousands of nails in them. I hope you get the picture. There are better sources for Maple.
 
Here's another
http://www.janzen-pfeifen.de/englisch/indexeng.html
and here (no prices listed)
http://www.hermanns.dk/hermannuk.html

Here's where I found those:
http://www.tylerlanepipes.com/modules.php?name=Doc&text=Pipe_Making.5~Materials_Sources
Let me know if you get anything from any of these sources and how it goes!
Denise
 
We cut up a few bowling balls to make pens. One of them was a black rubber one, and it was a disaster! The urethane balls turned great, but the black rubber just chunked off while turning it. It was gummy when we sanded, and gooped up the bushings and the mandrel. YUK!

I wish you better luck with your experience!

Sheila
 
Originally posted by PensofColor
<br />We cut up a few bowling balls to make pens. One of them was a black rubber one, and it was a disaster! The urethane balls turned great, but the black rubber just chunked off while turning it. It was gummy when we sanded, and gooped up the bushings and the mandrel. YUK!

I wish you better luck with your experience!

Sheila
Click to expand...
O.K. SO not all of my ideas are so great. Actually most of them arent' but I don't tell anyone about the bad ones[;)]
 
I contacted both of those places that Denise posted earlier. They both seem very nice. One place told me that the "Cumberland" they list is ebonite that is brown and red rather than black.

I would like to try some of this material, but they have a minimum of three rods. I don't know if that's three rods of each style or three rods total. Either way, since it's $45 per rod, that's a bit steep for me. The rods are, If I'm understanding correctly, about 40" long. That would result in about seven pen blanks per rod, for about $6.43 per blank.

I was wondering if anybody else would like to go in on an order with me? If so, post here or E-Mail me. If there's enough interest we'll put together an order, I'll have everybody pay to me by Paypal, I'll have it shipped to me, and then cut in to blanks and ship out from there. The cost will be the price of the rods (they say shipping to the US is included in that price), the cost of shipping from me to you ($3.85 Priority Mail flat rate envelope), and whatever the PayPal fees are. So let me know if you're interested.

BTW, the other place has a material they call epoxyd amber, a nice swirled yellow that looks like acrylic, but it's even more expensive. I'll still look in to it, but the price is less appealing.

Scott.
 
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