Thread: COOLIBAH or COOLABAH ?

Beaut pen Gary. I am inclined to think this penkit is really well accepted because it houses a decent refill,fits in the pocket so well.

Coolibah is a versatile timber with so many faces. You nailed it turning wise. A solid kit and a great burl mate.

Peter.

Coolabah is one of my favourites too Gary, shown off to good effect here.
The Polaris kit is probably one of the only kits on the market that I haven’t tried, I have seen a couple of them posted that I have really liked the look of, but overall not a fan of it either.
I guess I should have tried at least one so that I could have an honest opinion on it, but I will probably just take your word for it Gary.

Thanks Peter and Brad for the kind comments. Almost finished the next "see if I like it" trial using the Sierra kit - so far it looks good. And regardless, it's still all a learning exercise for both pen turning and pen photography - but a very enjoyable one!

Cheers, Gary

Glad to hear you are enjoying the journey Gary.
I am pretty sure you will like the Sierra, it’s a very popular pen style, my best seller for a lot of years.
I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with it though. I love the stylish look, but I hate the engineering/design part when it comes to the 2 push together halves, I have had too many customers that have tried to unscrew the 2 halves to change the refill, then pushed the transmission up into the top barrel and then can’t connect the 2 halves again. Give me a pen that has a proper threaded section to unscrew to change the refill, and I would be happy. There are some kits coming onto the market now that has addressed this by using a finial mounted transmission, and still using the Sierra sized tube, but I don’t think anyone is selling them in Australia yet.
Timberbits has the Lucida, which I like a lot and is one of my favourites , but the shorter size and lesser tube/blank length turns some people off.