wigglingmapple
Member
first, sorry for my english its will some time be a mess to understand^^
I'm new to turning it's been like 2-3years, but along the way and with 40-50 differents essences of wood turned i learn few things.
density :
density is important but not essential. turning a pencil in Gaiac or Buis is awesome because you really can go slim and weird without the wood to break, but it does have a cost on the tools and sandpapers.
i recently succeed to make a pen in douglas wood... who remind me the palm three, very fragile and hard to turn. so i simply grind it from backstand metal sandpaper to grain 1000 the result was excellent but with thoses materials or other non uniform density woods you really have to manually make them round first.
i had this problem with my segmented blank made of 12 colors drawing pens. the density was different between the wood and the pencil lead, so, i really had to make the round shape manually on a grinding machine with a 80-120 grain sandpaper.
shape :
i love crazy shapes, the weirder the better, but i oftenly have to break the angles in order for my pen to be agreable to write with, and depending on density, the less dense the simpler the shape.
I also use some metal thread to "burn" the wood it's giving a nice natural result, no colors added.
sandpapers and finishing :
the finishing part is what take us the most time i think. i use a lot of sandpapers because i mostly turn some thick Buis, rosewood or exotics. i actually find a box dispatching the different sandpapers. its very useful and quite cheap on my chinese crap internet site ^^ i will post you a picture of it.
i recently had a problem on my finition when i made a segmented pen of wood and aluminium... sanding the metal was messing with the colors of the wood so i really have to be vigilant on sanding them separetly.
from 80 to 2000...depending on the wood i like my result perfect, i use sand papers and abrasive pads, who really are good for very small finitions.
when that is done i use melamine for the pore filling and wax for the good shining look.
i some time use Superglue cyanolite in order to have a very smooth and long lasting pen, but like a lot of you i find sad to loose the smell and touch of the wood.
I'm new to turning it's been like 2-3years, but along the way and with 40-50 differents essences of wood turned i learn few things.
density :
density is important but not essential. turning a pencil in Gaiac or Buis is awesome because you really can go slim and weird without the wood to break, but it does have a cost on the tools and sandpapers.
i recently succeed to make a pen in douglas wood... who remind me the palm three, very fragile and hard to turn. so i simply grind it from backstand metal sandpaper to grain 1000 the result was excellent but with thoses materials or other non uniform density woods you really have to manually make them round first.
i had this problem with my segmented blank made of 12 colors drawing pens. the density was different between the wood and the pencil lead, so, i really had to make the round shape manually on a grinding machine with a 80-120 grain sandpaper.
shape :
i love crazy shapes, the weirder the better, but i oftenly have to break the angles in order for my pen to be agreable to write with, and depending on density, the less dense the simpler the shape.
I also use some metal thread to "burn" the wood it's giving a nice natural result, no colors added.
sandpapers and finishing :
the finishing part is what take us the most time i think. i use a lot of sandpapers because i mostly turn some thick Buis, rosewood or exotics. i actually find a box dispatching the different sandpapers. its very useful and quite cheap on my chinese crap internet site ^^ i will post you a picture of it.
i recently had a problem on my finition when i made a segmented pen of wood and aluminium... sanding the metal was messing with the colors of the wood so i really have to be vigilant on sanding them separetly.
from 80 to 2000...depending on the wood i like my result perfect, i use sand papers and abrasive pads, who really are good for very small finitions.
when that is done i use melamine for the pore filling and wax for the good shining look.
i some time use Superglue cyanolite in order to have a very smooth and long lasting pen, but like a lot of you i find sad to loose the smell and touch of the wood.
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