True to his word, our Wizard from OZ, George, sent me an envelope full of the weird and wonderful from "Bits O' Timber" to try and test. One of the pieces appeared to be a small seed pod embedded in a beautiful aqua colored resin. With a concern for shredding and tearing, I worked up a design for a Pen State Southwest Mesa pen. Sumpin' simple...like me. I cut some banding materials for the ends as well as several subtle metallic bands as separators and a central splitter. The piece turned with few problems, probably because I stopped and sharpened six or seven times. I also took the precaution of soaking the piece several times with thin CA each time the cut showed raw material. Kind of stabilizing on the fly. And...Taa Daa, you see the result. Much of it is what I hoped for. I do feel that I could have gone much stronger on the central "splitter" band in one of several different ways. Of course, by shying to the timid, I will never know if it would have been an improvement...or just too much for a very busy blank. One more time where I feel that I missed a chance by being too conservative in my vision. So what do y'all think? Please leave your thoughts here on this thread for both me as craftsman, and for the generous and saintly George at Bits O' Timber, regarding the material. We both value your opinions and support.