How do you make "non-wood" type pens

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Skordog

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A while back I saw a pen posted by Darrell Madis where he had glued sea salt and peppercorns onto a pen.

I would love to experiment with some unusual combinations of materials just to see what I end up with. My questions relate to how to attach the materials.

Do I use "thick" CA?
Do I glue directly to the brass tube or turn some wood down thin first and then glue to the wood?
Do you use a form of some sort to hold the material on while it dries?

Thanks for the tips.

Jeff
 
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Jeff,
one option is to glue the stuff in place and then cast the entire pen in resin (see the articles page on this site for info on that...it's something I plan to try soon). That will smooth out all the bumps, while still giving you the look of the glued-on stuff. If you don't mind the feel of the stuff against your fingers, you can also try a LOT of CA. I would imagine that you can get away with just gluing it directly to the tube.

Good luck!
 
Do I use "thick" CA?
Do I glue directly to the brass tube or turn some wood down thin first and then glue to the wood?
Do you use a form of some sort to hold the material on while it dries?
Click to expand...
I used medium CA (that's what I had on hand) and when the material was built up enough soaked the blank with thin CA. Glued directly to the tube--while glueing the tube was held with a dowel. It's hard to keep glue from getting in the tube, if it does it must be cleaned out or the parts won't fit when assembling the pen.
 
Jeff and dmadis,
Someone suggested plugging the ends of the tubes with a piece of potato. Apparently it seals it off pretty well, and is much easier to clean out than the glue that otherwise gets in there.
 
George called me the other day and asked a good question. Can you take a regular cigar and make a cigar pen out of it? Anyone with suggestions.
 
Johnny,
In the very short time I've been turning, I haven't seen that done. What I do remember, though, was that someone had posted a blank that was made of tobacco. If you search the forums, you should be able to find it.
 
Thanks for the feedback guys. With regard to plugging the ends of the tubes I have been using the dental wax that BB sells. Great stuff!! And much less of a mess than potatoes. However for glueing stuff to the outside of the tube I like the idea of putting wax on the dowel and then using that as a handle. Thanks for suggesting it Fred.

Jim, since I don't have any resin on hand I'll probably just try glueing with CA or expoxy. (I only have thin CA ). [^]

Looks like I need to get to the hobby store real soon to pick up some new supplies.

If I come up with anything interesting I'll post pictures.
 
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