Thread: New Day - New Arrival

Enjoy

Originally Posted by plantagenon

I just received my timber blanks from Bell Forest Products in the US.

Didn't happen without pics

Originally Posted by plantagenon

..marking each blank to cover brain fade at a later time...

Good idea. You should also dip in boron mix, those Qld bugs love OS timber

Originally Posted by plantagenon

...some of the best timber I have seen: no knots, no worm holes, no defects...

But the faults makes the pen blanks better IMHO

OK - too late at night now to go out and photograph the blanks. I will do it tomorrow so receiving them really did happen. Bugger, I will have to untack them first and lay them out - oh well, there goes the afternoon's work

Dip them in Boron? As Pauline said, "Please Explain"

Originally Posted by plantagenon

Dip them in Boron?

Boron is a powder product you mix in water then spay on your timber, it soaks in and when dry, keeps the bugs away. Pure Boron is bought from agriculture suppliers. I buy it and mix with water in spray pack.

You can also use the not so concentrated Borax you can get at you supermarket that contains Boron. Just use warm water, keep adding the Borax until it no longer dissolves, ie settles. Then just spray on your blanks or dip them.

Cheers

OK - Here is a selection of the blanks I got from the US. I haven't photographed every blank but I have taken every species I got. I have to do it in 2 posts.

Second part

Beut Greg,

Some lovely stuff in there, nice colours and grains too, i like the snakewood, and the pink ivory.

Neal.

A few very nice ones amongst them

Unfortunately the photos didn't do justice to a lot of them. But I will see how they turn out when turned and polished.

very nice batch of goodies
love the snakewood WARNING make sure you do plenty of research on drilling and turning snakewood , it is like no other wood
it has to be kept SUPER COOL or it will CRACK

i have only done a couple of these but had heard of the problems and did plenty of research , even to drill a sierra blank i used a variable speed lathe to drill the blanks
1/4 in at a time and then waited till it cools down EVEN that amount of drilling it can crack even sanding should take bloody ages the let it sit even when finished before pressing together

and the other thing i have read is that " if it hasnt cracked yet it still will "
i left one of mine unassembled for 2 weeks with a CA finish and yep it cracked , was able to hide it under the clip
sorry to hack your post but just trying to save you a few amazing blanks

Some really nice looking woods there Plantagenon... I hope you have lots of fun turning them all into some great pens. I look forward to seeing the pictures.
Best, Chrome

Thanks Troy. I will take it very slowly when I finally get around to turning it into a pen.

Greg

Greg, great lot of blanks--TAKE HEED of SNAKEWOOD----Troy has warned you--and me too from frustrating experience, would pay to do a search on this Forum re "snakewood", drill with a coolant maybe metho, maybe water, and 1/4 inch at a time and cool it each time. When turning take it easy, and ESPECIALLY sanding, I think maybe wet sanding may be the way to go even though it is wood!!!?? let dry and then apply finish, when polishing watch the heat!! and if you successfully do that and put it together without cracking--DON'T Boast!!!--put it on a shelf for a month and then look at it. My beautiful Jnr Emperor lasted 9 months!! then developed a crack!! AHHHHH!!!, Apart from that , you have some great blanks. Amos

Originally Posted by Woodenink

Greg, great lot of blanks--TAKE HEED of SNAKEWOOD----Troy has warned you--and me too from frustrating experience, would pay to do a search on this Forum re "snakewood", drill with a coolant maybe metho, maybe water, and 1/4 inch at a time and cool it each time. When turning take it easy, and ESPECIALLY sanding, I think maybe wet sanding may be the way to go even though it is wood!!!?? let dry and then apply finish, when polishing watch the heat!! and if you successfully do that and put it together without cracking--DON'T Boast!!!--put it on a shelf for a month and then look at it. My beautiful Jnr Emperor lasted 9 months!! then developed a crack!! AHHHHH!!!, Apart from that , you have some great blanks. Amos

yep amos sadly another classic case of the snakewood curse
the last one i did ( sierra ) i used a variable spped lathe spinning about 100rpm drilling 1/4 inch the wait 15 min then go again it took about 1 hr to drill it heats up VERY FAST after that i took about a month to turn in stages , sand in stages , finish, the let sit a week , praying it wont crack , left it 2 weeks it cracked but able to hide the crack

Sounds like a real pain. Is there a way to stabilise it. For instance I mentioned once that a boat builder mate of mine gave me a special resin to seal some rotting wood on my boat and it petrified it. Just like stone in the end. I must phone him again