Potpourri - "Moonlight Sonata" :D

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karlkuehn

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Well, I've been out of the photo booth for a while and I had to blow a bunch of dust out of there, what a mess. I was in lint hell there for a while. heh

This is one of my newer Hybrid blanks - "Potpourri - Moonlight Sonata", which is a pearlized midnight blue.

I drilled, painted and glued up 10 different blanks this weekend (kind of a QA run), and I've slowly been turning them in between tasks.

I was really happy with how well the Potpourri blanks are holding together, although I drill slow and clear the hole every 1/4" or so. I also keep my skew pretty scary sharp, but overall it turned smooth. After I drilled the blanks, I soaked the insides with thin CA to pick up any little cracks and such, sprayed a little accelerator in there, then re-honed the excess out.

Inside of the blanks I painted a darkish red acrylic prior to epoxying in the tubes. I was actually a little surprised at how opaque this one turned out. Very little red showing through.

I did have to fill one little void inside a seed pod with colored CA, but it's about invisible now. :)

I turned it a hair shy of the bushings, put on a layer of CA/BLO to pop the 'grain', CA topcoat to get it back to size, then sanded to MM4000 and white diamond buff. Ren wax after final assembly.

I'll be adding more pens as I get time, but I wanted to get something out here for now.

The kit is a Gold TI Baron from Bill at AS, thanks Bill! :D

Comments/Questions/Suggestions welcome!

PotpourriMoonlightSonata1_1.jpg


PotpourriMoonlightSonata1_2.jpg
 
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Skye

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That's a very busy blank, but I like it. Works great because it really complements the gold kit.
 

Dalecamino

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It's about time !! :D That's what I wanted , but I lacked alot of things ! Brains for one . [:eek:)] Thanks for the info , Bro ! It's great to see some of your work again , it's beautiful ! [8D]
 

Grizz

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Gorgeous! I think I'm going to have to get me a few of those blanks.
 

karlkuehn

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Originally posted by MarkHix

I like it alot. Could you smell the potpouri when you turned it?

Yeah, it smells nice drilling and turning, but there's some kinda thing in there that makes me a little sneezy. Not sure which seed or leafy thing it is, though.

It was nice to be in the shop on some other tool besides a saw for a change. heh

Thanks for the nice comments, guys. :)
 

airrat

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well Karl since I still cannot afford to buy any blanks, if you think it will make you sneeze send them to me. Last thing I would want is you to sneeze and gouge a wonderful looking pen. :D:D[:p]


Very nice pen and concept.
 

sbell111

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I was sceptical of the potpourri blank that you sent as last month's bank o' the month. Truthfully, I didn't much care for the lok of it and wasn't sure that I knew how to market it well.

Cathy turned it while I puttered about doing other things. She was fearful that it would esplode, so she used sharper than sharp tools and took it easy. It actually turned pretty easily, but we did lose a bit of the potpourri as she got to the final shape. Unfortunately, we couldn't find the little stemmy thing to glue it back in, so we filled the tiny gap as well as we could.

I didn't get around to taking a proper pic of it. Truthfully, I didn't expect it to sell at the small, weekly show that we took it to. Happily, it sold (along with several other pens) in the first half hour. I snapped a pic of it at the show before it went away. I'll try to remember to see if the pic turned out and post it.

Thanks for coming up with so many awesome blanks.

BTW, our smelled like cinnamon red hots while Cathy turned it.
 

karlkuehn

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Originally posted by sbell111

I was sceptical of the potpourri blank that you sent as last month's bank o' the month....
BTW, our smelled like cinnamon red hots while Cathy turned it.

:D

I'm glad it turned out, my 'Fireweed' blank is in the queue, I've got it drilled but not turned yet. They're pretty fun, like a treasure hunt by the time you get them turned down. Glad it sold for you, too!

I use Alcohol based art markers to color in any voids before I put the CA in there. The CA dissolves the pigment and it mixes in really well. Instant color patch! I keep about 90 colors of markers to get the shades pretty close.

There's a few different scents that I use in those. The cinnamon one is my favorite so far. They stink to high heaven when the resin is curing because the heat brings the smell out. Kind of a weird mix with the PR fumes. Sorta like drinking acetone with Kool Aid in it. heh (don't do that, by the way, just a joke, not a recipe. [xx(]:D)
 
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