Awwwrrrr,, shucks! [:I] Thanks for all the kind words!!
Dave R. Yes, it would look awesome with the copper kit. Two issues: 1) I've heard the copper kits don't last worth beans. 2) I didn't have one. [

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Skiprat, actually I have thought about turning our multicolored plastic scrubber into a pen blank before but never thought it would be interesting enough to bother with. But as we were walking down the aisles of our local grocery store I saw a package of two of those copper scrubbers and just froze. My wife looks at what I'm looking at and sighs knowingly and says "yes, that would look good in a pen.". [

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Tanner, you *could* coat it with CA to seal it up but what you see is unsealed and the metal is definitely at the surface. If I were doing the Sierra Vista I might try over turning it a hair and then recasting it in PR to seal it. No idea if that would work. I'm trying to find other-than-CA solutions these days because I've started having pretty severe reactions to CA fumes (like my nose closing for days)(and yes, I do use a chemical filter mask ("I am your fahhhther, Luke!")).
Kirk, I'm honored! Make sure they post pictures!!
Dario, I did think of doing like a snake skin and wrapping a single layer around the tube. Three things prevented me: 1) I couldn't think of how to make it stick without lots of CA (see above), 2) I couldn't think of how to line up the seams evenly, 3) I didn't want to muck up the pretty view I had as it was bundled up so I just cut in half and rewrapped the bundle and stuck it into my mold. After it came out of the mold I ran it through the tablesaw to square it up with the center of the wrap in the center of the blank and then I just drilled carefully which resulted in the tube basically being wrapped in the metal anyway.
GK