Dymondwood?

[oges]

Anyone heard of this wood before? looks like some kind of coloured plywood.

http://www.wnice.com/dymond.htm

[KevM]

Oges,
To quote from "Turning Pens and Pencils" by Christensen & Burningham.

Dymondwood is made from 1.5mm hardwood veneers impregnated with specially formulated phenolic resins and permanently coloured with dyes. These veneers are then bonded under high temperature and pressure. The result being a a uniform multilayered wood product with a wide range of unique physical and mechanical properties not available in conventional wood.

Dymondwood's beauty, richness, texture and grain cannot be matched by any other natural material. Since Dymondwood is impregnated throughout with resin, there is no need for additional finishes and it can simply be buffed to a satin or gloss finish.

All of the above sounds like a paid advertisement but Christensen & Burningham devote a number of pages in their book to using this product in penmaking, including cutting with a diagonal grain pattern to pick up the the varying veneer colours. Pens produced from this product certainly do look impressive.

Putting it simply, yes it could be termed a coloured plywood.

regards

Kev

[Sir Stinkalot]

I have used it before for a few pens. It does make an interesting finish but it really doesn't produce the classy pen like the crushed velvet or the marbled blanks. Carba-tec did sell it at one stage but it is no longer in their catalogue. I had a few problems with it failing along the glue lines ... but this could have been my poor turning techniques.

Stinky.

[oges]

just had a look at the carbatec webpage and they have it listed there. I was after the plywood but dont really want to go to the trouble of importing from Pakistan, thanks

[Eastie]

Looks similar to what they make some of the fancy laminated rifle stocks out of. The properties of the stuff is pretty amazing, as it doesn't warp, is almost water proof and is as stable as most composite resin compunds. I haven't heard or seen any local manufacturers though.