Two firsts - Camel thorn and CA

[jlaviolette]

I have been avoiding CA finishing because I don't like plastic looking wood, but finally gave it a shot. After some experimentation on scraps, I decided to give it a shot on a pen. I think it came out nice. Camel thorn is beautiful, but I found it very difficult to work with. Any tips would be appreciated

 

[PaulDoug]

Nice looking pen. I have never heard or that wood before. It is pretty. You wrote is was difficult to work with, how was it difficult?

 

[reiddog1]

Nice pen. Yes, it is very difficult to work with. Very dense and oily. Much like African blackwood.

 

[jlaviolette]

Yes, I would compare it to African Blackwood. Really dense. It was tough to drill, VERY difficult to ream. I had one explode on me when I reamed it to square the blank with a freshly touched up whiteside reamer. It is dense and hard. It had a very pronounced blunting effect on tools. My easy rougher chattered a lot even with a fresh cutting edge. Traditional gouges worked better but I had to sharpen halfway though.

 

[toddlajoie]

Hey Joe, that came out fantastic... Yea camelthorn can be tough, I find that the density and irregular grain pattern make scrapping difficult, hence the chatter with the carbide tools. I find it is lessened if you can turn the tool edge so it is not parallel the tube...

CA finish came out great too, first time or 100th tim, that finish looks great.

 

[jlaviolette]

It's not evident in the pictures and you REALLY have to look for it in person, but there are 2 or 3 tiny milky white spots somewhere in the CA. I've read that it could be due to improper application of accelerator.

 

[toddlajoie]

Yea, that's why I stopped using accelerator. Takes a bit longer to do it without it, but not as long as doing it over again... I think the main thing is to use VERY little accelerator with a VERY fine mist spray.