Thread: HOWTO: Spiderweb pen

mmm mate? Can yer make that pic 3 a tad clearer please? Thank you kindly

aahh so its not the purple heart that needs to be the same length just the thickness of the small peices of laminations? mmm innerestin me ol cobber innerestin

Do please carry on

Reposted it jus 'cos you asked so nicely Shane.

Glue's dry, next set of pix:

Pic 1. OK, making it more usable, just roughly trimmed the excess bits off with the bandsaw.

Pic 2. Sanded two adjacent sides flat so it'll run true through the bandsaw yet again.

Pic 3. With the two flat sides against the table and fence, run it longways through the bandsaw to split it in half... then do the same with each of these halves so you end up with quarters. The figured redgum against the fence is just a spacer 'cos I can't get the fence close enough to the blade with the roller-guides set so low... and I want 'em low to keep the cut accurate. The scrap bit of redgum on the right is just my push-stick... I like my fingers where they are, thank-you. Done enouigh damage to 'em already.

Pic 4. After a quick sand to clean up the bandsaw marks and to make a better glue up, I lay the pieces down so that the pattern looks the same in each piece and rearrange them so that the laminations line up. As you can see, when they're aligned, the ends don't match. This is why I started with a blank a couple of cm longer than normal. The sides you can see in the pic are the sides that will be glued to each other, so that the "points" of the arrows you can see will all be in the middle of the blank. Does that make sense? :confused:

Pic 5. Glue two pieces together, with another lamination of <whatever wood> inbetween. Make sure it has the herringbone pattern on both sides! ie. if I removed the clamps and looked at the other side, it'd look almost exactly the same, with the pattern lining up. Repeat with the other two pieces.

So, now I'm waiting for the glue to dry again. You should be able to work out the rest, but in an hour or two I'll post the last pix anyway.

Really Effective Skew!!

Cheers
Wendy

that will make one awesome pen. looking forward to seeing the end result.

cheers

Skew, that purpleheart looks like the decking that Chippy's in Ringwood sell. Is that the stuff? I have a few pieces of that.

Originally Posted by Rookie

Skew, that purpleheart looks like the decking that Chippy's in Ringwood sell. Is that the stuff? I have a few pieces of that.

Yeah? .... What do they charge for a metre of 'decking' PH ?

Originally Posted by Rookie

Skew, that purpleheart looks like the decking that Chippy's in Ringwood sell. Is that the stuff? I have a few pieces of that.

Bingo!

It shocked me when I first came across it, but I've since obtained several lengths...

Originally Posted by Skewpid

Yeah? .... What do they charge for a metre of 'decking' PH ?

I forget. But 'twas dirt-cheap, trust me.




OK... tomorrow I'll see about scrounging up a penkit & some glue (I'm pretty sure I'm out, but who knows for sure what's lurking in the dark recesses of my shed?) and turning it. But as far as the blank construction goes, here's the last two pix:

Pic 1. Out of the clamps. If you look at the front face, you can see that the patterns don't quite line up. Either I screwed up or it shifted while in the clamps. To be honest, either is possible... I was in a bit of a rush at the time.

Pic 2. A finished blank, ready for use after trimmming the ends level. Pretty it ain't, so long as I can hold it square for drilling, who cares how neat the outside, which is waste to be turned away, looks? I'm spewin' that the patterns so far out though... that's a BIG difference and will be really noticeble on the pen.

Ah well, c'est la vie. [shrug]

Thanks for this skew. I appreciate it heaps. I have printed it out. Tommorrow I am going to play
Toni

Good luck with it, Toni. It really is a lot easier to just do it than try to describe. You need to take a bit more care than I did this time, though.

Skew you are your worse critic
Toni

I just read this thread, and have enjoyed it very much.

But did I miss the finished product posted somewhere else, or is the pen yet to be finished........!!

Cheers.

purpleheart follow go here
https://www.woodworkforums.com/f69/thick-39258
this is the start where we asked Skew how he did it
Toni

Hello Toni, thank you for that link.

I noticed in the link, Skew was asking if anyone else has ways of sanding their laminates nice and thin.

I used to do it by hand (using various saws and then a belt sander), but you can never really get a piece that is of uniform thickness.

I eventually got a drum sander, and I have sanded the pieces down to 0.4mm with no troubles. They are very even, and this has solved many consistancy problems I was having.

I am sure it (the drum sander) could make them thinner too, but some wood is almost transparent at that thickness, so I have not gone thinner.

Just to keep Skew on his toes, here are a couple of picts from a book of pool cues I have.

In the third pict, the spider web pattern (in the corner) is a little blurred, that is because the book is very thick, and would not sit on my scanner very well.

Cheers.

Drum sander, eh? Looks like that'll be the next mod to my lathe then. (And maybe another WIP. )

The blank I made up in this thread is still waiting to be turned, 'cos I've run out of epoxy and the budget won't stretch to the 1L tins at the mo. I use so much epoxy that less is a waste of $$$, but I may zip down to a $2 shop and grab a couple of small el cheapo tubes :eek: just to keep the habit fed.

The laminates in this blank are a bit thinner than those in the original pen, so I'm hoping for more of a web effect. [fingers Xed] I may have to move up a size and start doing walking sticks (or maybe pool cues? ) so that I'm not working such a small'n'fiddly scale. Actually, I've got a couple of walking sticks in the works right now... so much easier to laminate up! But turning 'em, now that is where the challenges will be.

Originally Posted by Purpleheart

Just to keep Skew on his toes, here are a couple of picts from a book of pool cues I have.

I love the scaled effect on two of the cues in the 3rd photo... can you guess what my next pen project will be? Keep me on my toes? Maybe. Give me ideas to pinch? You betcha!!