South Australia Shiraz Red, vine pen blanks...! closing 31/8/2010

[ivorann]

Hi George
I would like 20 of those in West Oz could you pm with a total please

Martin

 

[robutacion]

Hi George
I would like 20 of those in West Oz could you pm with a total please

Martin

Sure Martin,

PM sent...!

Cheers
George

 

[Kev]

George, thanks very much, the package arrived yesterday.. no I am looking forward to making something out of them

Kev

 

[Pastors Pen]

I would like ten please. Please PM me and let me know what the shipped price is, and whether you accept PayPal, or if I need to pay another way.

 

[Pastors Pen]

Oh, and I would prefer half dark and the other half two-tone (if possible). Thanks again!

 

[robutacion]

I would like ten please. Please PM me and let me know what the shipped price is, and whether you accept PayPal, or if I need to pay another way.

Sure Pastors Pen,

Paypal is good and PM on its way...!

Cheers
George

 

[robutacion]

George, thanks very much, the package arrived yesterday.. no I am looking forward to making something out of them

Kev

Thanks Kev,

Glad you got them and I wouldn't be waiting too long before I would make a couple of pens with them, why...???

Well, the all brown ones are all dead wood and "most" of them are dry, you can actually feel their light weight, but the 2 tone ones have an interesting characteristic or at least the 2 samples I made from the 3 initially shown here all turned round and finished (1th coat of sanding sealer and Floorseal) within a couple of hours of being cut from the vines.

Apart from the all brown one, the other 2 were as green as they can be and I was expecting some nasty shrinkage after I process them as samples and taken the pics the next day, before the possible "wrinkling" would start but, and as a unexpected surprise, they haven't move, bend, twist, shrink, crack or other. They all are as straight as a "fiddle" and absolutely no signs that the wood was wet and green...!

I have those same 3 samples ready for a second coat of Floorseal, after I discovered that the wood is porous (as announced here in a previous post) and I wanted to see how much more it would take to close those porous, using the Varnish finish I'm using, I will show them as soon as they're finished!. I know that with the CA, a glass finish will be obtained with some extra CA and sanding, but I have no doubt that some people will leave it with the porous showing as the finish as quite nice...!

So, my friend, what I can tell you is that the blanks did shrink, move and crack like hell while drying with the accelerated process I used (heat -fireplace) but the wet/green blanks that I made into samples did stabilize strangely with the "sealing" of the wood.

Is obvious that vines are not trees/nor your normal wood, they are a fibrous type material that resemble a lot more wood grain, particularly in the dead wood (fibres), then things like palms and others but, there will be a scientific name and explanation to what vines really are but, unless I get the time to search and study it in more detail, or yourself decided to Google it a little further, this is all I can tell you for the moment...!:wink:

Cheers
George

 

[kenlicciardello]

Hello George,

Thanks for all your hard work on these. They look great. If I am not too late, I would like 10 pen and 5 bottle stoppers, a couple in dark and the rest in two-tone. Please send a total and I will paypal.

Thanks
Ken

 

[robutacion]

Hello George,

Thanks for all your hard work on these. They look great. If I am not too late, I would like 10 pen and 5 bottle stoppers, a couple in dark and the rest in two-tone. Please send a total and I will paypal.

Thanks
Ken

Hi Ken, no you are not too late, this add runs right to the end of this month, and after that they are available on my eBay store. I'm actually thinking in "maybe" offer a "voucher discount code" for the IAP members to purchase them on eBay.

There will be a little more (price) than the introductory prices I offer here but the vouchers will take 10% off the approx. 25% extra fees and costs of selling through eBay....!

I can also extend this add here, if there are some expressions of interest, there is, those that would like to buy some but, this is not the right time for them financially, right now...!:frown:

I can understand all that, and I have no particular interest is paying/make you pay, all those extra eBay fees and charges but, it is what it is, and has been working quite well for me, considering...!

Sorry Ken, I got carried away here, in regards to your order request sure, 10 x vine blanks and 5 x bottle stoppers have been noted of my orders book.

For those ordering the 2 type blanks (pen blanks & bottle stoppers), we may have to make a little adjustment to the quantities requested, when putting it all together to utilize the box size and the total weight to a limit that will not incur extra costs because the parcel weights 5 or 10 grams over the set weight limits...!

I'm also cutting the bottle stoppers in doubles, others will make 3 BT out of a 6" long blanks x approx. 35mm but, I will have some singles (3" long) but the vast majority is 6" long.

PM sent...!

PS: The bottle stoppers we finish today, weighed about 165gr in average, each. Just so that you know...!

Cheers
George

 

[robutacion]

Hi everyone,

The second batch of blanks has just been shipped to the following members;


*- Rodtalways (US), Randbcrafts (US), Denaucoin (US), Ivorann (AUS), all shipped today 23/8/2010.

Orders with bottle stoppers will be processed next, I will advise those waiting for the total package (box) cost ASAP.

Cheers
George

 

[robutacion]

Hi peoples,

Some more orders have been shipped today, and those are;

*- Pauldoug (US) second part of the order (BT blanks), Darrin1200 (CAN), Nava1uni (US).

There are a few more orders to be processed but I'm waiting of the payment confirmation to proceed...!

The orders that included bottle stopper blanks, I endup turning them round(ish to accomplish 3 things, weight reduction, better presentation and less wood to dry...!

I am changing the way I'm processing the bottle stopper blanks for various reasons, I don't really like the way they come up after the first batch has been processed for sale. The pen blanks seem to have performed a little better than the BT's, mainly due to the thickness (wood volume) involved.

Both type blanks are going to be processed differently, heat is not helping much for the results I want, this vine material is certainly different and is reacting a little too badly to heat from the firewood, making the wood go totally mad...!

This is my first time processing such wood material and certainly I'm learning very quickly, what not to do with it, from its reaction. One of the difficulties, is to balance to behaviour of the 2 different type woods, within the vine body. It doesn't have the common sapwood and heartwood, but a percentage (varies dramatically from piece to piece) of "dead" wood and the rest of "non-dead wood", I can't say live wood because is not so, and until I/we find a better description for it, this will do...! unless..., we call it dry wood and green wood...!!!:wink:

Anyway, having these 2 type woods joint together by nature ,and me wanting to produce a mix of the 2 materials for best contrast and effect, we have a bloody fight between these two, with the dead wood, being dead and doing nothing, and the fresh/green wood wanting to twist and crack/separate/explode away...!:frown:

With the pen blanks is noticeable but with the BT's is just madness so, I'm trying another way of dealing with this material, which I've used many times before in "difficult" or "with a mind of their own" woods...! The idea is not provoke the wood fibres to tense up, shrink as distort so the first thing is keep them away from heat (just doesn't like it...). Secondly, remove all the excess wood (rounding on the BT's and remove square corners on the pen blanks, as soon as they are processed from the vine.

Allow 1 day for the exposed wood to lose some humidity (surface dry), dip the blanks into my preferred wood stabilizer, the "Fungishield", drain and rack them to dry under cover and in normal conditions (good air flow). This is my process with all my green turnings, regardless of wood used and if this vine material stabilises as easy/well as I think it does (tests done from the 3 pen blanks samples made a while back...!), we going to endup with blanks that will maintain its shape and size reasonably well, will not develop many cracks and will dry (the green wood/material) without too much fighting with the dead/dry stuff...!

From the tests I've done with the first batch of BT's I took to the house firewood area, the very wood surface was dry but a couple of mm in the wood was far from dry, indeed it read the same MC% content than those freshly cut. The reason for this is that, the heat has harden considerably the wood surfaces, sealing the heat from reaching the wood any further in but in the process, the hard skin formed, was also creating the distortion of the blanks. This can be easily explained by the phenomenal flexibility vines have, the fibres within work like springs/strings, allowing those to harden will provoke the fibres to tense up, shrink and twist...!

I'm certain that everyone will understand that I'm working with a new material to me, and there are not a lot of information about them for this propose that I can relate to for study so, I learn as I go...!
Is obvious that my general experience with normal/common woods is allowing me to address these problems/situations with some ease but not, without some extra time spending experimenting...!:wink::biggrin:

I'm adding a few pics of the new way I'm processing these blanks and before I forget, as far as I know and using all the various finishes I normally use, the Fungishield did not affect any of them in anyway shape or form, including gluing where, glue-ups where made within days of the liquid stabilizer was applied into the wood. My experience refers to hot days with medium to high temperatures, obviously could weather and low temperatures with high humidity levels, means that the treated wood should be left longer to dry before glues are used...!

So, lets see what this lot is going to do...! The BT blanks, after rounded and treated with the stabilizer, are still lighter than those that I've sent away with the square corners cut off so, they are ready to ship a couple of days after being treated...! You will see and know those blanks that will be safe to turn soon after arrival (I strongly recommend to let this wood acclimatize to your conditions for a week or so before attempting to turn...!), those will be the ones with less areas of green wood and mostly dead wood.

With the pen blanks will be pretty much the same thing...!

Cheers
George

 

[RyanNJ]

Blanks arrived today Thanks! Awesome Service

 

[PaulDoug]

Received mine today. Nice looking blanks
Thank you

 

[jimm1]

I would like to know the final sale price for 5 pen blanks to the U.S.

 

[robutacion]

Thanks Ryan and Paul, glad to see those packages arriving, they were all sent registered post (no exception) but there is no tracking number, the only one to offer such option is Express Post International and has an additional charge of about 40% more...! and that is just ridiculous..!

Anyway, I'm glad that is still Winter here otherwise I think I would be in troubles with these vines (Summers are very hot and wood cracks faster), after they were washed they were cut in lengths of about 13" or so for under cover storage while I process some as I can. Didn't seal or paint first because the ends were wet with sap coming out and second I didn't thing that I needed to spend that much time doing the ends sealing as I wasn't expecting that much cracking so soon...! wrong...! once again, the fresh cuts are showing lots of cracks developing from every vine end that I can see from the pile.

The idea was to store it stacked out of the weather so the the vines can slowly dry as is plenty of gaps between them so, I would be processing an initial number of vines into pen and bottle stopper blanks, getting then ready for use/sale. After that, I was/I'm going back to the stacked pile and semi-process a percentage of them, there is, I'm going to cut them into 6"1/2 lengths logs, split then in half (where ever the pith is) and then seal the ends of each half. This would allow the wood to dry quicker, killing the pith strength of twisting or blowing the wood apart and at the same time I would be getting rid of damage and/or unusable wood, and there is plenty of that...!

Most of the bigger vines have the pith to one side, this is particularly useful to make the bottle stoppers from, as each of those short logs will produce 1 bigger half (for bottle stopper) and a smaller half which I normally get 1 pen blank from. All other small diameter vines are normally sliced in half producing 1 pen blank each half, unless the quantity of dead wood within is very small/narrow, in this case I will cut each half off centre to get a good pen blank from each half. There are also many halves that have no colour (brown) so they are just discarded (what a waste...!)

As I mention a few times previously, there is a phenomenal amount of waste with these vines, so far a volume of 50% wastage, most of it from damage done from ripping them from the ground the way they were, obviously they weren't expecting anyone (this silly bugger) to try salvage any, much less so many of them...! :wink: Oh well... still plenty there, I'm just not sure if I can "clean/process" the ones I've got, and get rid of the rubbish so that I can have some more space to store more, before the piles go up in smoke, or we get the energy and time to go back to the "piles from hell" for some more.:redface:

In the mean time, I've got a "few" more pics to show everyone, they go from the 3 initial samples after being coated and dry with the last coat of Floorseal, the "pile", a damaged pen blank that I sealed and sanded 2 faces to make some tests with my USB microscope, having a close look to the "construction" of this type wood/material and the layers which compose this vine material, mostly...!

I got to go..., I wish that I could coupe with a few days of 16 hours behind the bandsaw, instead of the couple of hours or so a day I'm getting at the moment, and get all these vines cut, slice and sealed, before I lose eve more of the good vines I have put a side but if these ends cracks of the piled vines are going to keep growing, I'm going to endup with with one usable 6"1/2 short log out of 13"+ they were cut originally, to provide me with 2 x 6"1/2 short logs...! damn...!:frown:

PS: To be continued...!

Enjoy

Cheers
George

 

[robutacion]

I would like to know the final sale price for 5 pen blanks to the U.S.

Hi Jim,

Sorry mate, you were posting while I was putting together my last post so I didn't see you until now...!:wink:

The 5 (five) blanks sent to the US in the most economical air-freight option (regular air-freight) will cost AU$18.70 (including blanks).

Interestingly, the 250gr package in Registered Post will cost the same freight amount of $23.20 as the 500gr...!!! now, explain that to me...!:redface:

In the 250gr package I will use a "taught bag" as the smallest box would be too big for 5 blanks and weighing too much for the 250gr limit.

Again Jim, the 500gr package with 10 x vines blanks will cost you AU$37.60 sent Registered Mail, the blanks are still @ AU$1.50 each until the end of this month (closing of this add/thread).

I'm following with a PM to you with Payment details, you just confirm your choice and I will be on to it...!:wink::biggrin:

And while I'm at it, lets continue with the pics...!

Cheers
George

 

[robutacion]

We had a nice sunny day today, the first in quite a while so it was good to open the windows at the house and let fresh air go in, smelling like Spring already and lots of trees around are starting to flower, he have also and ocean of yellow all along the highway, a few mile on each side of Town, as any acacia/wattle species and subspecies only flower in winter and this place is just covered with these species, from trees to shrubs it's just very pretty but also very "deadly" to asthma and pollen sensitive sufferers..!

Anyway, we just got back from the shed and we counted 200+ vine pen blanks cut @ 22mm square and with the corners cut, treated with Fungishield and racked to dry. We also counted 45 bottle stoppers rounded, treated and drying...! These will be the next to sell after the last ones from the second batch , about 30 pen blanks and a dozen bottle stoppers rounded waxed on the ends (both pen and BT blanks).

For local (Australian) sales the pen blanks will be 21+mm square and the corner will not be cut as this is not a problem for the freight prices within Australia, particularly the flat rate 500gr and 3kg pre-paid bags. The bottle stoppers will be also round and all will be treated. We got about 50 square pen blanks also treated and drying, for eBay nest week...!

It is possible that "some" of the first vine pen blanks that where sold, are going the be difficult to be used on big body pens, this is due to the out of shape result from the accelerated heating/drying process used. Shrinkage was considerable, even tough blanks were cut @ 22mm square, and after the square corners were cut of, dome blanks did look a little skinny for larger pens.

I hope that you don't have many blanks that can only be used in smaller diameter kits but if we do, don't worry I'm addressing that problem right now and the signs look promising at the moment, however things can change so we will see in a few weeks, where we are at...!:wink::biggrin:

Finally, I got pics taken from the 3 original vine pen blanks samples (done green/wet). This varnish finish was used to achieve the gloss finish which is normally achieved with 1 x coat of Floorseal after the wood has been coated with sanding sealer, dried and sanded lightly. This time and due to the porosity of the wood, another coat of Floorseal was given, you can see certain undulations on the finish, and that is normal as the wood can have moved and or the varnish didn't level as it should. There were no other attempts to round the blank surface after the sealer application was given, when with the CA finish this is easily corrected between the CA finish stages.

The reason why I don't use CA to finish my samples is that, these samples are also used to determine the same wood type reactions to the normal finishes I use in all my other turnings, apart from pens, is pretty much like kill 2 birds with one stone...!:biggrin:

PS: pics continued...!

Cheers
George

 

[robutacion]

Well, to finish this photographic series, the following pics are the last ones...!

Only because the add contained in this thread is closing on the 31/8/2010, doesn't mean that the information provided together with the evidential pics will or can't be used for future reference, after all is not everyday that we find information about the vines...!

PS: Another parcel posted today (30/8/10) to Kenlicciardello, thanks!

Cheers
George

 

[scotian12]

Hi George...You shipped my package on August 19 to Canada and it arrived this morning...10 days for shipping which is great service. The blanks are great in color. I will put them away for awhile to dry some more. The blanks are too small for the emperor kits but they should do well for the junior series. Thanks for the great promotion and all the information/pictures that you provided Darrell Eisner Canada

 

[robutacion]

Hi George...You shipped my package on August 19 to Canada and it arrived this morning...10 days for shipping which is great service. The blanks are great in color. I will put them away for awhile to dry some more. The blanks are too small for the emperor kits but they should do well for the junior series. Thanks for the great promotion and all the information/pictures that you provided Darrell Eisner Canada

Hi Darrell,

Thanks for letting me know of the package arrival...!:wink:

Unfortunately, my first attempt with this new material did shrunk a little more than predicted, particular the blanks with more green wood than dead wood. This has been addressed and I believe the next blanks will be at least 21mm square when dry. I did actually made a comment a post o two ago about my concern of the shrinking size some of the blanks endup at, possibly compromising their use on very large kits...!

The all brown blanks (only dead wood) will be safe to turn as they are dry, the other 2 tone ones yes, let them dry a little longer...!

Please, don't forget to post some pics of the pens made with these blanks, I'm yet to see one...! (well..., I could do a couple myself but that wouldn't be as much fun and excitement, than have them done by other people...!)

Best of luck...!

Cheers
George

 

[robutacion]

OK good people, the time has arrived to close this add, as advised...!

There are only 3 names (in the list) that banks have not been sent yet, RichStick and Michni that I don't seem to get any reply from, after 3 or 4 PM attempts and Arbsmith that only today I find out that he has been in hospital, coming out on Wednesday, Hawaii time...!

Apart from these 3 people, 2 unconfirmed and 1 confirmed today, everyone else in the list and anyone else that requested blanks after my confirmation of more raw material available, have had their orders process with some already arrived.

The thread will continue running, for people to post the arriving of their blanks and any opinions they would like to express. I would like so start seeing some pens made from these vine blanks, as soon as people feel confident to turn them.

Anyone else that would like to acquire/purchase some vine pen on bottle stoppers blanks, after today will have 2 options. One, is get them from my eBay store (address on my signature bellow) and two is to request them via PM here at IAP.

At the moment I'm thinking in provided a discount "code" for all IAP members, allowing them to get 10% discount on the eBay purchases which will be higher than the promotional prices offered in this thread "add".

Obviously, if blanks are ordered via the IAP forum PM system, the discount will apply but the "code" will not be necessary, as you have to be a member to use the forums PM system...!:wink:

Paypal will continue to be the Payment method accepted in both cases (eBay or here), it will be your's only decision to where you would prefer to get the blanks from, I will make no suggestions in that regard, your money, your decision...!:biggrin:

Processing time and shipping conditions are exactly the same, for both cases.

I hope that I manage to provide sufficient information in regards to this new material to me and to so many of you however, if you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me here or by PM (preferentially...!)

It will be some development in this material behaviour to some modifications and tests that I'm performing at the moment but that will be posted in due time...!

Thank you very much to everyone that made orders, and I hope that this vine material will become a success with you and with your customers...!:biggrin:

PS: To repair or fill voids in these blanks, I have found that the grind coffee beans is particularly good for the brown areas. I have saved some bandsaw dust and shavings from turning the bottle stoppers round, I can supply free of charge a portion of one or both, with any orders made, you only have to request it...!

Best Regards
George