My first MUTT!

[TexasTaxi]

Before I found this forum, and the members that sell mutt blanks here, I bought two of these from woodturnerscatalog.com. The other night, I decided to turn one.



Give me your honest opinions and/or critiques.

I've been struggling with the BLO/CA finish for a few months. I finally figured out how to change my lathe speed, and dropping it down to the lowest (600 rpm I think) helped some. I can apply the thin CA almost perfectly, but every time I try the medium, it makes a big snotty mess and won't cure. Is there a chance that the glue is bad?

This one has about 8 coats of thin, sanded midway through and at the end.

 

[G1Pens]

Looks like the fit is good. I'm not a big fan of the fatter look, but that's me. Sometimes its hard to tell from photos, but it doesn't appear to have a very high gloss, so if I am mistaken ignore the comment. I like a high gloss on a pen like this and think it needs either buffing or Micromeshed

 

[ToddMR]

Looks pretty cool to me. Curing issues could be lots of things. I always use spritz of accelerator myself. Took me a while to get CA finish down to where I am happy with my process now. Could be bad glue too, but hard to tell. I know the more you build up the longer the set time in my experience.

 

[TexasTaxi]

I agree on both accounts.

I try to make my pens with as little bulge as possible. On this one, I was afraid that I'd turn away all the wood, so I stoped the lathe fairly often to check on what was left. When I got to a point that I thought was an acceptable balance, I stopped. Otherwise, I would have taken it down more.

I couldn't get the thin CA to build up, like I wanted to, to get the gloss. I would consider this to be more of a matte finish. Right now, I feel like my finishing is my tallest hurdle, even though it's 10 times better than it was 6 months ago!