Thread: Bookmarks

Thanks Rhys, they look great!

Q's ... how thick is the timber, do you stack cut them, what is the inscription, what finish do you use?

Good to see the Hegner's making dust, not collecting it Deserves a greenie!

Cheers
Tikki

Tikki,

This could be a bit long winded but here goes.
The bookmarks are made out of the offcuts I have from the bandsaw boxes that I make. I rough cut them to 160 X 32 x 5mm and then run them through a drum sander to bring them down to about 3.5mm and then stack them in piles of 7 and hold them with masking tape. I have a series of patterns which I found by doing a Google search in the image section which I transferred onto formica for repeatable patterns. I clean up the ends on a 250mm disc sander and then sand each one on a slightly soft pneumatic drum sander which gives a slightly oval shape to both sides. This negates the thickness of the bookmark to a large degree which eventually ends up just a little under 3mm. I finish them off on a 180 grit 150 x 50 flap wheel that has been slashed. By slashed it means that the it has been cut in about 4mm sections across the width of the wheel. The soft flap wheel burnishes the face and rounds off the edges quite nicely to give the bookmark a tactile feel. The finish is 1 coat of Haarlem oil.

Many of the bookmarks available are laser cut plywood and are very much a factory production with little finishing sanding and are square to the feel whereas these are more of a craft item which feels good to those who like wood. The branding on them says "Ancient New Zealand Swamp Kauri" and is done with one of those self inking stamps by Trodot and made in Austria. I do have to use a fast drying ink in that to prevent the ink from bleeding into the grain. I made 4,000 of these last year and now supply three more shops than last year which is why I needed a very good quality saw to keep up with the work. Long live the Hegner!!

Rhys H.

Hobbyhorse,
Heres a few of my bookmarks.
!.2 mm thick, fit nicely between pages of a book.

Really nice bookmarks Bob. What are they made of and what is the finish on them.

Rhys H.

Rhys they are quartersawn Radiata Pine finished with a homemade Danish Oil (with 7 secret herbs and spices )

Equal quantities of Raw linseed oil, Polyurethane and turps.

Can cut a stack of 14 but usually only cut 10.
I cut them 2.5mm thick from shorts rather than offcuts as I can really get the speed up, which I couldnt do with offcuts. I thickness them to 1.25mm.

Did think about using various timbers specially Cypress Macrocarpra

I sketch all the various shapes.

Don't sell near as many as you, suppose I should get out more often to flog them but I seem to get sidetracked by too many other things. At the moment I've just started to make some darkside tools.

Bob,

Thanks for your information. My main income is from bandsawn boxes made from swamp kauri and from this I get offcuts of around 15mm x 200 which it seems a wrong to just burn bearing in mind the 30,000 to 45,000 year old nature of the wood. I would dearly love to get the bookmarks thinner but the strength would be lost as I can not quarter saw them. I sell most of them through The Ancient Kauri Kingdom in the North of NZ which sells only swamp kauri items. They also retrieve the timber from the swamps, dry and mill it and supply me, and many others, with materials.

Just of interest their web site is www.ancientkauri.co.nz

Rhys H.

Nice looking bookmarks

1.2mm! do you glue veneers together to get this thickness or something?

Brett I machine them to 1.2mm thick , no laminating