More experimenting with Mulitple woods

[Old Griz]

Been experimenting with multiple wood pens to see if they are worth it for the upcoming Christmas craft season...
This one is Western Cedar with Ebony cap and ring. The ring is a captive ring, not floating like most center rings.. a little trickier to set up but the fit comes out a lot nicer.
Finish was sanding to 320.. a little BLO sanded in with 400 grit.. then 3 light coats of cellulose sealer sanded to 12000 MM and Renaissance wax...
Only 2 little problems:
1. The different wood densities makes is imperitive that I take very light cuts or I ended up cutting too deep into the cedar coming off the ebony with my skew chisel...
2. Ebony sanding dust gets into the open pores of the cedar, but comes right out if wiped with mineral spirits between grits.
I have a couple of other combos I have glued up.. walnut with cocobolo cap... and ebony caps on curly cherry, cocobolo and a piece of mystery wood...
<center>Western Cedar with Ebony Cap and Ring</u>

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[Efletche]

That's awesome! Are the speckles of black, in the cedar, the ebony dust you spoke of? Looks great. Hope I can get that good. Think an Ivory pen with ebony cap and band would look good too?

 

[Old Griz]

I think Ebony and Ivory would be fantastic (look what it did for Stevie Wonder and Paul McCartney, LOL)... IF you can get some pure jet black ebony that does not have any brown striping in it...
No those flecks are actually sanding dust and blo from when I sanded the blo in at 400 grit... I was very careful to try to not sand over the ebony at that point, but of course a little did. There is probably a little ebony dust in with the cedar dust, but you really can't tell when you see the pen in real life..
The actual pen color is not quite that brown... it is a bit more tan with some nice curl in it .. but a nice contrast to the ebony..

 

[Efletche]

I got some ebony blanks from Woodcraft a while ago that are solid black. I also ordered the faux ivory blanks from PSI. One of our Cardiologists is an avid big game hunter. I'm trying to coerce him into giving me some of his elephant ivory for a few pens. He's already cut the antlers off one of his trophy heads for me.

 

[tipusnr]

I like the multiple woods look. Hope it sells well for you. Should distinguish you from the mass producers.

 

[ilikewood]

Hey Tom, I've got some French Holly that is quite white I'll send you if you want (gift). It is pretty hard stuff and may not show the difficulties in sanding that other white woods with ebony might show. Let me know.

 

[wayneis]

One thing that some of you may not know about ebony is that it will crack very esasy if you get it to hot when sanding or turning. Also, I've seen it happen that it did not crack untill several days after it was all done. This is why many use faux ebony.

 

[Guest]

African blackwood is a good substitute for ebony.
From experience ebony is difficult if not impossible to put a BLO/CA finish on ( at least for me) though I haven't given up yet.

 

[melogic]

Beautiful pen Tom. My wife really likes Ebony. She has turned a couple of sets out of Ebony and they sell before she can convince me they will not sell and keep them for herself. We are going to be trying a few mix and match woods soon.