Prickly pear cactus pens

[MesquiteMan]

I got a wild idea a few weeks ago to try to use some prickly pear cactus to make a pen. I took the internal skeleton of the cactus and poured it full of epoxy dyed with Transtint dye. I tried using PR for the first time but evidently it is not compatible with Transtint since it did not even begin to set up even after 1 week.

Anyway, I thought the came out pretty cool and it was fun thinking outside the box!

The prop in the first pic is a piece of the cactus skeleton after it is cleaned up and dried.

This is a quick scan to please excuse the lousy quality.

 

[Dario]

I love these!!! [:0][:0][:0]

 

[JimGo]

WOW, those are cool! I just threw away a cactus I had hoped to make a pen out of because the inside was too squishy...never thought about using epoxy or casting it in PR! Duh!

 

[knottyharry]

Great job Curtis...
Very creative.
Harry

 

[Johnathan]

Wow, What a great unique look. I think your going to get a lot of questions about this one.[8D]

 

[dubdrvrkev]

Those look great, good thinking. The top one almost reminds me of lightening.

 

[leehljp]

I love the creativity involved with your pens and material. Besides that, the pens are standouts! Do some more!

 

[Jim15]

Great looking pens.

jim

 

[chigdon]

That is awesome!!!

 

[elody21]

That is really Wild!! Great idea! I love them! Did you have problems getting the epoxy to come to a high gloss? The reason I ask is I have tried to use black epoxy to fill air bubbles in black resin and the spots will not shine. elody21 - Alice

 

[pete00]

very cool !!!!!!! love em.......
do some more blanks then sell them to us...[][]

 

[stinger]

I never would have thought of doing something like this. The results are fantastic.

 

[PenWorks]

Great looking pens and terrific design [:0]
What part of the prickly pear is that ?
The leaf, branch or root?
I have cut saguaro, ocotillo and jumping cactus,
but never seen prickly pear like that.

 

[rtparso]

How did you remove the flesh????

 

[Deere41h]

Those are really neat. I would love to hear more about your process. Have you tried it with tinted PR? Did you wrap the cactus around the tube and then add the epoxy or did you make a blank and drill it to add the tube? I like the outcome. Thanks for sharing them with us. Gives a lot of us new ideas.

 

[chitswood]

Excellent! You get [:0][:0][:0][:0] and 1/2[:0]

For the unique turning material

 

[guts]

looks like you got a lot of folks wondering how it the world you did that including me,all i know about the pears is don't touch them without gloves on.[]

 

[MesquiteMan]

Thanks everyone for the nice comments. I am going to post a quick run-down on the penturning section on how I make these pens. I figure more people may see it there.

 

[airrat]

Curtis you have definetly "stepped outside of the box". FANTASTIC!! work.

I dont have the ability for your process. If you plan on selling some blanks I would be interested.

 

[arjudy]

Very cool idea.

 

[gerryr]

Those are great!!!! I have prickly pear growing around here and even straight Roundup will not kill it.[:0] Now I know what I can do with it.

 

[woodscavenger]

That is awesome!!

 

[Tropical]

Really cool! [8D]

 

[Glenn McCullough]

Time to start a business....if you make them ,they will buy them, I certainly would!
Still waiting...

 

[fiferb]

Fantastic. I would buy blanks as well.