What size blanks?

[knowltoh]

I have aquired a nice bunch of exotic wood pieces. I have been cutting it into pen blanks 5.25" by 3/4" square. Some are just slightly less than 3/4" to get the greatest number of blanks out of a piece. This allows me to maximize the number that will fit a small flat rate box to 22 blanks.

Some of the wood is 3/4", some 1" and 1.5" thick. As I don't turn much other than pens, I thought I would cut it all in to pen blanks. Is there any reason to leave some blanks 1" square or larger? I don't turn anything that does.

I plan to offer blanks on IAP. The wood includes Ipe, Cumaru, Bloodwood, Morado, Mahogany, Jatoba, Lacewood, Goncalo, and others. There really is some nice wood. I thought guys might be interested in turning some of this wood. It is not burl but, to me, makes very nice pens.

I will have a box in the classifieds as soon as I get a decent photo.

 

[MichaelD]

Herb, just my opinion but, I've often wished my blanks were a bit larger. On blanks, especially with interesting grain or that may have inclusions, I'll mount them and turn them round first trying to pick up or get rid of the areas I want. I'll go so far as to retrim the ends and mount them "catty-whompus" to keep some particular pattern.

Also, The Spring Blossom kit comes to mind for oversize blanks. The cap on that takes a 14.1mm tube and finishes out at a whopping 16mm+ finished size. I sure like starting with something larger than 3/4"(18mm) when I try to stab a straight hole for that tube.

Leave a few of the more interesting ones in the larger size, IMHO.

 

[robutacion]

Even with the thinnest blade kerf you can get, some industrial cut size slabs/boards, won't give a proper pen blanks dimensions if you try to "squeeze" more blanks out of it than you should.

If you are cutting blanks for yourself, only you can them decided you thin you want to go, you can even work the sizes so that you get a number of "average" size and the last one a little thinner that can or not be usable even for making Slimlines out of them.

The "official size" of a pen blank is 19mm square, this is the minimum acceptable that you would expect to find in shops or sold online however, you can go either way and cut them smaller or bigger, the question is, if you want to sell them, who is going to buy the thinner ones and who wants to pay for the extra freight of oversized blanks if they only want the regular size that is most OK ar 19mm square...???

So, if I have to decided if to cut them, at least at 19mm or try to get a higher yield but of blanks that are pretty much useless to most people, I know what my decision will be. In fact, I go through that dilemma almost every day, particularly when I'm cutting rare burls or very expensive stuff.

From experience, and if you want to sell some blanks, think of the average person that will try to use them, in between drilling accuracy and other factors, is always better to have that little extra but not going too overboard, there are turners that require the 1" square blanks and I always think of them but cutting a few at that size but less than 19mm square should be avoided, I like to provide 21mm square on my blanks, every time possible, anything that comes out any less than 19mm square are grouped together and sold as seconds or irregular sizes, properly identified as such...!

So, what I'm trying to say is, don't be greedy with your woods, make it so that everyone can enjoy working with the blanks, not being scare, afraid/worried/concerned to not drill precisely straight, or not have enough "meat" for the pen kits they want to use however, going to the other extreme at 1" square, unless you are selling them locally and shipping weight is not so important, you need to find a size that pleases the majority of people, don't leave them too big only because, you don't want to trim them to a better size...!

Good luck,

Cheers
George