WTB: Irish bog oak

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Sauerkraut

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Oct 8, 2017
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Hoping to score a quick blank or two to make for a friend's birthday this sunday. Preferably from the 6500yr old lot that I think popped up here for sale. If anyone has any extras, I'd love to buy them off of you and pay for 2 day shipping.

Thanks!
 
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penicillin

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@Twvaman is the original seller. I bought five blanks from him here at Penturners.org. Twvaman had his bog oak dated by a university using tree ring spacing. He sent a copy of the report to me by email. The Irish bog oak that he sold to me comes from Roscommon Bog in Ireland. A few weeks ago, I sent a PM request to buy 10 more, but he never responded. I searched and found his account on eBay. I bought 10 more blanks from him through eBay. He does not have anything for sale on eBay at this time.

I received two types of Irish bog oak from twvaman. I call them "dark" and "light". The dark ones are more common. They are nearly pure black and are denser. The light ones are more brownish gray in color and weigh about 2/3 as much as the dark ones.

I wrote to the university researcher who dated the blanks, and he informed me that the species of oak for my Irish bog oak blanks is either Pedunculate oak (Quercus robur L.), Sessile oak (Quercus petraea), or a hybrid of the two species. They are types of white oak.

I turned a few pens from the Irish bog oak blanks. They are easy to turn if you are careful. The wood is very dry and it splinters easily. The sawdust is like charcoal. It chips out easily. I found that freshly sharpened high speed steel (HSS) tools worked better than sharp carbide. I have turned many species of wood, but this is the first time I have turned oak. I have used oak for furniture and cabinets in the past, but not for turning.

CA finish does not look good on these pen blanks, in my opinion. I used GluBoost Fill 'n' Finish. The CA finish made the pens shiny and totally black, even with the lighter colored blanks. I used Hut Crystal coat on two recent pens. Crystal Coat is not a durable finish, but it looks and feels much better on the bog oak than the CA finish. The attached photo is a Celtic twist pen in antique pewter with a "dark" (my term) Irish bog oak pen blank from Roscommon Bog, finished in Hut Crystal Coat.

A friend recently asked me about the Irish bog oak I had bought. He wanted to try some for himself. When I could not find more bog oak from twvaman, I searched on eBay for "bog oak pen blanks", "Irish bog oak pen blanks", "Roscommon pen blanks", etc.

You can buy bog oak pen blanks from different bogs around the world. I found Irish, English, Russian, and other sources. They had a range of dates, but the Irish bog oak from twvaman is the oldest I found at 6500 years. I think that the age of the wood adds to their appeal, so the older, the better.

I found a different seller who has Irish bog oak pen blanks from Roscommon on eBay. The listings say that it ranges from 3000 years old to 8000 years old, but it may not have been scientifically dated like the bog oak from twvaman. It looks the same in photos, but you cannot learn much from looking at photos. It occurred to me that oak trees probably fell into the Roscommon Bog over a period of several thousand years, so there is no guarantee that undated bog oak from Roscommon comes from the same 6500 year old tree as my Irish bog oak.

Celtic Pen in Bog Oak.JPG
 

Sauerkraut

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Wisconsin
I needed them for tomorrow, so I went and crossed my fingers with a bog oak blank from Rockler. Thank you Larry, you go right ahead and buy em.
 

penicillin

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Rockler has bog oak from The Fens in England. It comes with a small certificate, similar to the ones they include with their Bethlehem Olive and Carob blanks. The certificate says that the bog oak "is between 4-6,000 years old."

I like these Irish bog oak blanks because:

* They are from Ireland, and I needed some for family and friends with Irish heritage.
* They were scientifically dated, with a "precise" date of 4464 BC +/- 9 years. No wide range that spans thousands of years. I can legitimately claim that these blanks are "6,500 years old". (Yeah, I rounded up to get an easy number, but it is reasonable.)

CORRECTION: In my post above, I stated that these blanks come from "Roscommon Bog". I got the name of the bog wrong. The blanks came from Derrycanan Bog in County Roscommon in Ireland.
 

Jay

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Dec 5, 2018
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Atascadero, CA
I make pens solely as gifts for friends and family so would like to be able to say they came directly from Ireland to connect with my family heritage. ExoticBlanks.com has some bog oak imported from Ireland which I have purchased. They still have a few left. Would love to have gotten a few directly from the source, but evidently not going to happen. I missed the original posting. Hopefully it will pop up again here and all those who want some will be able to place orders.
 

penicillin

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Joined
Feb 27, 2019
Messages
1,036
I make pens solely as gifts for friends and family so would like to be able to say they came directly from Ireland to connect with my family heritage. ExoticBlanks.com has some bog oak imported from Ireland which I have purchased. They still have a few left. Would love to have gotten a few directly from the source, but evidently not going to happen. I missed the original posting. Hopefully it will pop up again here and all those who want some will be able to place orders.
Here is Irish bog oak from Ireland that you can buy now. It is 3,000-8,000 years old, according to the seller:


Ordinary ancient Irish bog oak is not that difficult to find. Genuine. From Ireland. It seems more difficult to find bog oak that has been scientifically dated. In my opinion, most recipients don't care about precise dating. "Thousands of years old" is good enough.
 
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