Is it just me?

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BeeAMaker

BeeAMaker

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Jan 30, 2017
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Elkhart IN, USA
I have only been doing this for a couple 3 years now but I have noticed that it seems more and more blanks are "lite" on the colorant.

When I first started out just about any acrylic pen blank I bought was opaque. It was somewhat easy to tell if the tube would show through and needed painting before gluing into the blank. But in general, resin style blanks were very hard to see through, or so it seemed.

Now it seems that no matter what color it is, I can see the brass tube color showing through. This last one I just cut is 2mm thick of material, black/silvery looking color, and I can see the brass. :confused: So it now looks more like a dark army greenish with opaque silvery parts.

Are blank makers starting to maximize their profits by minimizing material? Or has it always been this bad and I just got lucky until recently?

I guess I will start painting all my tubes.
 
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I understand you to be talking about polyester resin blanks, or that type, not Alumilite.

I personally would appreciate the name of the blank under which it was sold to you. . For example ... "Seascape Camo", or "Persimmon Twirl", or "Rogue Red".

Whenever I use a "resin" (by which I mean any common blank other than Alumilite) I routinely paint the inside of the barrel after drilling it to the appropriate size.

I don't do this with Alumilite, or Rhinoplastic, and sometimes not with the "so-called" acrylesters from Woodturningz.

I have been turning pens for 9 years and have not noticed a difference in the opaqueness that you mention, over that time span.

If your wall thickness is uniformly greater than 2.5 mm (0.100") ... which is rare ... painting should not be necessary in my experience.

However, I constantly feel annoyed with pen kit designs in which the barrel wall is unnecessarily thin, and I don't mind going on the record for expressing that. . The PSI Executive is one example of that, and I would also add the Berea Sierra. . Both of those examples are pretty old pen kits and there might have been a reason back in those days for doing what they did, but not anymore. . You can now find alternate kits of similar design with thicker barrel walls ... for example, some of Smitty's kits which are now sold by ExoticBlanks.com.

The kit you use does make a difference (as regards barrel wall thickness), and I am wondering if, over the time span you have been turning, you may have changed your preference in kits. . Of course, the blank color and type you choose also makes a difference.
 
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@magpens

Thanks for the reply, this specific blank is the Acrylic Acetate #32 - Midnight Racer blank
Acrylic Acetate #32 - Midnight Racer - WoodTurningz

The wall thickness is 2mm. I too am not a fan of the unnecessarily thin wall thickness so I stay way from those kits. I thought surly 2mm would be opaque, but guess I was wrong.

Although I have used Acrylester blanks before and still some now, I an not a fan of Acrylesters either. Just too brittle.

I guess I just never realized it before.
 
I haven't noticed any trends towards lighter coloring and I'd be surprised if there were a deliberate financial motive. There's a trade off between translucency and opacity. I pour both, mostly in alumilite, with different goals in mind- a translucent blank will have much greater depth and pearlescence whereas a fully opaque blank can provide much sharper detail, but little depth. Surely the thinner the wall of the finished pen, the more the issue of tube showing through and the obvious necessity of reverse painting, but to me that's an opportunity to achieve some stunning results by creative paint color selection. Some experimentation is helpful and the results aren't always what you'd predict (see multiple threads with great photos of different results from different colors on the same blank.) I don't deliberately avoid thin wall kits, but often if there is a thicker walled version as with Sierra vs Le Roi, I'll tend toward the thicker. But I'll still reverse paint.

And I just realized that I keep saying "reverse paint" like it's a given, but now I note that you said "paint the tubes". There's people on both sides of this, but to me, painting the blank is way better because if you only paint the tube, your glue will show through blotchy-like
 
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