More Worthless Wood castings,,,,,,,,

[stevers]

Hi Folks,
This is also posted in "Show off your pens". I wanted to make sure all of you into casting got to see it.
Here are the latest burls done using MesquiteMan's "Worthless Wood" method. Things are going good with the system. The PR seems to penetrate real well. Even in some reasonably solid pieces. I have several more in the pot now. I put in 10 all together. Some with red and some with green PR. So far the wife and I like the green. It seems to make the voids stand out more and the tubes look cool in green light.
I'll say it again, if you have some burls or punky wood around, or just want to be able to repair the such, this system is quite usefull. Thanks again to Curtis for sharing it with us.

The top one is cast with the green and the lower with the red.

 

[cutterwoodjoe]

Great job Steve,
Looks like you got that down

 

[Rifleman1776]

Stunning.

 

[MesquiteMan]

Good job, Steve. I guess I better watch out now, huh?[] Green has always been one of my favorites as well. Try making your green darker, more like emerald. When looking at it from the side it will look black but when straight on, you will get the backlit effect from the brass tube and it will glow with the dark green. Same thing with red. Make it a dark ruby red and it will look awesome!

 

[stevers]

Thanks Joe, and Frank, means a lot coming from you.

Curtis, you have nothing to worry about. I just screwed up a fancy slimline. Over turned the lower barrel pretty bad. Still trying to figure out how to finish off these blanks. I have been using CA to smooth them out, fill little holes and give them a nice shiny finish. Some of the blanks are pretty light in color, so they tend to pull residue off the bushings. You can see it on the nib end of the lower pen above. I have always had a problem with that happening. What I did was made three bushings from 7mm tube. That keeps the sand paper off the bushings, therefor keeps the residue off the blanks. On this last slim, I wasn't careful enough about final size. I need to stop experimenting before I run out of wood.

Curtis, have you had any problems with the really punky spots in any of your wood? Some of my attempts have been troublesome where the wood is really punky. The resin wont quite penetrate into some of the softer spots. I haven't turned one of them yet, but when I drilled one of them, it felt really soft in the middle of the blank. I'm almost afraid to turn it. I'm worried it will come apart when I get to the soft spots.

 

[MesquiteMan]

Steve,

The really punky areas can be a little problematic. I have 2 ways of dealing with it. Either treat it like a non resin blank and CA the heck out of it as I go or if the punky area is not a large area of the blank I will actully remove the punky wood before casting.

 

[Blind_Squirrel]

Steve,

Try making cone shaped bushings out of small pieces of your left over PR. When you are ready to sand, replace the metal bushings with the cone bushings. If the tube is larger than 7mm I also turn a PR shim that I use with my squaring tool. I leave the shim in the tube while turning to support the tube and keep everything centered.