Thread: 11 pen blanks in excange for a finished pen!

Originally Posted by ElizaLeahy

It's a wonderful documentation of those species. I wish I had them like that for every timber species, would make identification easier.

The bay tree I would have mistaken for hairy oak.

Hi Eliza,
This is indeed to help people seen and identifying my timbers, and at the same time, give examples of timbers less known or timber that generally are not used due to their lack of colour or texture, but with X & Z cuts, this can change quite dramatically.

Not surprised you would mistaken that wood, lots of people did and do, just recently I had that identification discussion with Funkychicken and he also accepts looks similar but is not that oak! Bellow is the thread where I once again tried to identify the trees!

http://www.woodworkforums.ubeaut.com...ad.php?t=75691

BoomerangInfo
Thanks, but I'm not very happy with them still. I've tried my normal black backing set-up with strong lights on, I've tried outside in the sun, and then this spot, but what was happening all the time is that, even tough the camera is still on a tripod and the shutter activates on its timer (no touching) , photos change all the time with some focussing ok others so, so, and other absolutely rubbish. I know what sort of pics I wanted but I didn't manage to make them happen, as I always had troubles with this camera on closeup shots. Maybe another time I will try something else but this has to do for now, as I spent hours and hours taking pics and then have to do it all again and again...!

See if I can finish and add here the other ones from the set, sometime tonight.
I have one forum Interstate visiting very shortly, and another one tomorrow so my hands are a little full!

Take care, be safe on those roads everyone...!
Cheers
RBTCO

What camera do you have?

Originally Posted by BoomerangInfo

What camera do you have?

Russell,

My camera is a Megxon C630

Note: All timber samples are now downloaded on the previous post # 119

I'm also adding a new updated timber species list file for easy print, if required (recommended)!

Remember, I will identify timber species by their number (quicker & easier) and a letter X in front of the number means cross cut, the letter Z means diagonal cut.
The blanks identification numbers will be written on one blank's end in black or blue, and the letters X & Z will me marked in red.

You can identify the blanks after in your possession, in any other way you will prefer, but I strongly recommend that you keep a printed copy of the list together or near the blanks for easy identification, if ordering is required.

Cheers
RBTCO

Hi everyone,

Well, Easter is over and with it, the visit of 2 of our Intersate forumates, Brendan1952 from NSW and BazzaDLB from Brisbane. A very enjoyable times shared with these 2 fellows and respective wifes. Unfortunately, they didn't meet, as Brendan stayed Sunday afternoon/evening and Monday till after lunch (2:15PM) while Barry arrived at about an hour after, for the afternoon and evening visit.
The weather was kind to us all, sunny and mild temperatures make it quite enjoyable throughout the day.

As always, I was caught in the middle of cutting timber, but this time, in the working sheds. Indeed, the whole week was spent gathering old pieces of timber that I had on various locations, including the old ancient gum posts use in the Chinese farm yard, and buried under the sand for nearly 30 years, the same timber as the one used on the pen blanks #9.

As you can imagine, they were pieces all over the grass, and against fences, as they have all be washed with water and scraped with a wire brush. The metal detector did its job (well, I hope so...!) looking for metal, and all these bits were cleaned again with the air gun just before I started chainsawing and bandsawing. A couple of bigger olive logs were transfered to the paddock to the shed and cut in front of the visitors. Thinking that they would be interested on the pen blanks, I had prepare Sunday morning, 4 x complete sets of pen blanks that are now 27 (#8 has not been cut yet). They took 2 each and the timber selecting was Hilarious as always, with the common and expect reaction of, "Oh, I want that, and that, and that too", every time I would take them to a new store timber species areas. In no time the area designated to put their wanted stuff, grows, and grows...!

I hope that they all have enjoyed this stop over to meet us face to face and hopefully the "boys" had a good time around me my tools and timbers, that some how they were already familiar with from so many pics I've posted of the working area. Tanks Brendan, Thanks Barry.

Barry will be on the road for another 3 weeks or so, but Brendan should be back home, this weekend coming, so hopefully we will get some pics they took or will take of the stash.

I manage to get a bit of time in between to start cutting some more pen blanks, mainly in cross or diagonal from some of the timbers that are part of the pen blank set, but all in straight cut. As I explain in the vary beginning, the will be the "variations" I mention, which will become possible part of the kit set or sold separately, not sure yet. All the blanks I'm cutting now are 3/4" x 3/4" x 5" and one of the main objectives is reducing the bank size is to reduce its weight, allowing a lot mote pieces fitting into a 500gr or 3kg mail bags. A set of the bigger pen blanks weigh about 2.200kg, I would like to think that I can put 2 sets in one 3kg bag (about 54 to 56 blanks).

I'm getting absolutely "pleasantly crazy" stuff out of some of the cross cut timbers, what I need now is to turn and finish them as samples, like the previous ones

I still have a fair amount of those old timber to go through, some will just the cleaned and cut into square or best use shapes and be stored away for now. another couple of days should do it

Well, that's how my Easter was spent, and I couldn't really thing in any other place to be , or things to do, just great!

I'm adding a few pics from the timber around the yard and the main working area around the bandsaw which did work quite hard.

For those on the road still, please be safe.

Take care
Cheers
RBTCO

Well all I can say is you certainly don't do things by halves !! hehe, better enjoy the gathering and preparing now all you can,cause once you get the "pen addiction" you won't have time to play in the wood heap lol, cheers ~ John

Hi everyone,

Thanks gawdelpus, you're right, I don't do half things, I don't start anything that I know I can't finish, I do what I say, and I say what I'm going to do...!

Will see about that pen addiction, you are talking about, general turning is a bad addiction, but chainsaw work, dropping those logs down,and slicing the timbers, is pretty hard to beat. This is probably because I know, that this particular area of timber work will be the first one I will lose in times to come!

I'm very glad and pleased that my body din't let me down too badly these last few days with my expected visits. Was good to move around and do things without having to ask for them to do it for me. The whole week was a little too heavy going for me, and after the long weekend, I'm starting to feel the pinch and I know is going to it the fan soon so, with some luck I will have the time to finish sorting and cutting those ancient gums, and other old logs that I need to slice up and find out exactly what they are. After that I will be down for a week or two without being able to do much. By then I hope that I've got this eBay sorted and I can then use that extra time on the computer to get things moving, if I'm lucky.

I need to go to the paddock and slice some olive logs into slabs, but at the moment I just can't handle the weight of the mill, nor the strength needed to handle the slabs, so I will have to wait a few weeks and see how strong I feel then...!

One of the most anoying things of working with old used timbers is that, the cleaning up process can be a big pain in the posterior, and regardless how hard you try to remove all sand and soil, little stones, etc., is never a 100% guaranteed result, making the tools to work a lot harder and the cutting edges of whatever system you're using, get blunt and damaged to much too fast, damn...!

Most of my ancient logs/posts, are now cut into sections between 6", 12", 18", most of the timbers being about 6"x6" some more , some less!

I will try to give priority of making all the variation samples of my timbers in cross (X) and diagonal (Z) cuts, finish them as per the other samples, take some pics and put them together with the other ones. Some cross and diagonal cuts are already part of the second lot of pics, some other are cut but sample not yet made and some other species, I have to be done from the beginning, so a little more to go yet!

For now, and finishing my long day, I will add a couple of pics of todays ancient red gum stash...!

Cheers
RBTCO

Hi Everyone,

Well, after some effort, I manage to open a store on eBay called "Georges bits of timber" http://stores.shop.ebay.com.au/Georg...__W0QQ_armrsZ1and start putting stuff there. I started with 10 sets of 27 pen blanks, each set/pack is numbered, so you take your pick.
I'm working on some new species and cross cuts mainly so, soon I will have a few other things there!

Changing the subject a bit, I have been asked a few times what timber is this "Flame wood" #28 I've got listed? Flame wood is the name I come out with after my attempts to identify this species failed here
Today I needed to make a few more pen blanks of this timber species (very limited quantities, unfortunately, after some forumates got part of it from me last year in slabs and round blanks ), anyway, when is gone is gone but the point I was trying to make was in regards the reasons why I named this timber with the name I did...! Now, you look at the pics bellow, and tell me, what other better name would suit it any better?

Cheers
RBTCO

I went to your ebay - but nothing seems to be listed yet? Did I beat the gun?

I hope you have a lot of success with your timber sales on ebay - you have certainly been more then generous on the forum!!!!

Maybe they've all been sold already?

I did see one listing come up yesterday in my general Ebay search, but the store certainly seems to be empty.

Russell.

Hi peoples,

Yeah, the items took a few hours to be included in my shop, considering that I finish with the listing downloads about 4:00 am.

I've just checked, and they are all there. The one the you Russell, have seen on your normal eBay search, was indeed the pack 31 which I give a test run on a normal individual listing, and then canceled and replaced on the shop new listings.

I'm going to make also available individual pen blanks species, majestic olive will be the first one and will appear in 2 grades, A1 & A2 , A1 will be 100% heartwood and hand select as top grade, A2 is a bit of a mix (pretty much what you get if imported). This will happen possibly also in longer lengths (about 10") x 1" square, this will cater for almost anything that is made with pre-sold kits, (pens, hey-rings, etc, etc) including hair-sticks, needling, etc, etc. This will also allow nearly 100% use of the blanks length.
On the other hand, the inverse, there is, pieces smaller than pen blanks (from 1 3/4" to under 5") mainly half blanks or 3/4 blanks (for sierra type pens). This will be available , I think...! in lots of small/medium quantities, no bigger than what a 3kg bag can take. I'm still working on these, a few other things... will see...!

Cheers
RBTCO

Looked on E-bay,very impressive and well thought out ,I have not had a chance to turn any of yours yet, but looking forward to doing some soon, I hope all your hard work pays off and many others can share your timbers and appreciate them, cheers ~ John.

Originally Posted by gawdelpus

Looked on E-bay,very impressive and well thought out ,I have not had a chance to turn any of yours yet, but looking forward to doing some soon, I hope all your hard work pays off and many others can share your timbers and appreciate them, cheers ~ John.

Thanks John, most appreciated!

Cheers
RBTCO

Hi everyone,

I'm still waiting on pens made by the last 2 of our Australian forumates. None of the guys overseas has received any of my packages, excluding garypack from Singapore.

I'm having a gut feeling that I either miss something or forget to do something for someone here, basically I ask if anyone knows that I've miss something or someone, please, refresh my old mind, as I'm getting annoyingly forgetful.

I'm also attaching an update list of all timber, now 30 with #8 not yet cut, but the last 2 species are the #29 Leucern tree (dry) and #30 bottle-Brush tree, which I will put a couple of pics for identification of which one.

New things are going on eBay tomorrow (hopefully) and a few uniquely cut pen blanks are going to be done, sampled and tested. Those looking for something different, will have a pleasant surprise, I'm sure...!

Pen blanks cutting machinery (small band-saw and my noisy large circular saw mounted underneath of a GMC table saw carcass, are both giving me all sorts of troubles, as they weren't made to work this hard, and that is that. It hasn't helped much on either machine to be put through their passes with very hard and sandy/soily/stony/graby/metaly and a few other things that those blades had to cut through on those very old and ancient timbers,
I'm looking at a bigger/stronger band-saw, preferentially 16" to 18", a strong motor a good set of blade guides/rollers and not too noisy. I would prefer new, as I don't like the idea of buying someone else's problems, unless I can be guaranteed that the second hand machine is in perfect working order, or it has a problem, and I'm told what it is...! It all comes to money, and I don't have much of it so, I've got to use lots of imagination and some luck, not forgetting that a little fair go from a machine supplier on payment options can and has most of the times , resolved the situation quite nicelly see what happens...!

Got to go...
Cheers
RBTCO

Hi everyone,

Went to the paddock today, to get a few olive logs to work on before the weather turns wet as they are predicting for the next few days. Anyway, I got some large pieces cut for Timberbites, and then decided to slice a fair amount of it, into pen blanks. I've got them about 20mm square, and left them as long as they would go, normally around the 10" as this is the length I normally cut the wood for pen blanks making. Is time for me to start grading mainly the olive, as I want to be able to provide A1++, A1, A2 & A3 separately, as i want to make sure my hand selected top stuff, is going to be guaranteed to be a work of art from every top Majestic Super pen blank. There are a few other reasons why I'm separating this timber in different groups, I believe everybody will be able to get some olive wood, and special prices for special blanks, each one of the top grade is going to be guaranteed or money back/replacement free of charge, etc.
Now, I know that this is possible, but not a practice that the big timber guys would even contemplate, as they would be wasting/losing 50% or more value on the lower grade timbers that, end-up being mixed-up with the bundle, and we all know that very well. I don't even thing that would be viable for anyone to sell timbers as a business if only A1+ grades were acceptable from customers. The prices would be impossible to be worked with, if that ever happened! Some times feels good to be small or near insignificant in the industry, as "we" can allow ourselves the luxuries of playing with timber that otherwise wouldn't be possible.

I'm going to bed folks, I had enough for today...!

PS: before I go, I will add a pic that I took tonight after I finish ripping the timbers I had set aside for today, and you can see from left to right further box on the left, all A2 & A3, next box, A1, next A1++ and the one on the right is a combination of A1, A2 & A3, that never made the 5" for a full length blank. As you can see, even with good old olive, not a lot of heartwood with A1++ grade, nor even that much of just A1 grade, reason why no one wants to over select it, otherwise would be just to much waste. The percentage of top grade so far is about 5% to 7% max. I should point out very clearly that, I'm a very hard grader when it comes to serious stuff, and that does explain the low percentages that I claim of top stuff. You will find out why, soon enough!

Cheers
RBTCO