Thread: Tiger Moth

Pens with some history now that is what I like, Nice pens

nice pens
if you do find any free shed time I don't get enough shed time can you credit me some shed time please
regards Michael

What a cool idea, turned out real nice.

What a wonderful way to capture a piece of history. Being flakey it must have been soft to turn and sand. Your transition from the components to barrel are smooth and seamless. The finish clear and flawless. The laser engraving is clear and crisp. A very nice keep sake for anyone involved with aviation. Just a thought if it is possible, the engraver I use can do fine images, an image of a Tiger Moth would be great as well.

Thanks guys, they all sold within 12 hours, including the one I was keeping for me. Guess it means I will have to make a few more.

Sturina,

Before and during World War 2 Tiger Moths were the go, slow and easy going many fellows I knew learned to fly the guy next door learned to fly one and became a Fighter Pilot in the RAAF. There were a number out of the Canberra Aero Club those days the owners used to do their own maintenance, replace the cloth coverings and paint and repaint. Starting was always exciting using manpower on the wooden propeller, more than one took of unaided with the hand throttle extended accidentally.

In the 1970,s an enthusiast in Goulburn NSW kept, maintained and flew his Tiger Moth in endurance flights and invited me to photograph from the cockpit of his plane, talk about flying on the seat of your strides

Really liked Bdars suggestion re engraving that would be special, also considering the age of this timber Tiger Moth Spar 1900 whatever true date of commissioning.

They used to flour bomb during demos using bags of flour to show prowess at accuracy during the days of hand thrown bombs.

Pens with provenance priceless.

Kind regards Peter.

Thanks Penpal. I original only bought the wood to make a pen for me. I have about 200 hours flying Tiger Moths and teaching on them prior to my current more boring flying job. I have never lost the love for them though and wanted to capture the history. Lucky I have enough for some more pens, this time I wont sell mine!

Well done on the pens.

The pens look great. Were the letters painted in after the engraving? I appears to have bled into the wood in some of the pics. That may be what the engraver was talking about.

Originally Posted by justturnin

The pens look great. Were the letters painted in after the engraving? I appears to have bled into the wood in some of the pics. That may be what the engraver was talking about.

Some timber does not carbonise (blacken) when it is laser engraved and needs to be treated with something to darken it. In this case I used acrylic paint and found that the grain structure is porous and it did bleed a bit. You do not know how a timber will perform until you try it. This was the first time that I had tried Spruce, Next time I will try another trick of the trade that can work also.
Len

Originally Posted by Laser Len

Some timber does not carbonise (blacken) when it is laser engraved and needs to be treated with something to darken it. In this case I used acrylic paint and found that the grain structure is porous and it did bleed a bit. You do not know how a timber will perform until you try it. This was the first time that I had tried Spruce, Next time I will try another trick of the trade that can work also.
Len

I know '0', zero, nada, zip, zilch about engraving and have never had it done. That small point is great info to know as I never would have thought that would be the case. I wonder if a quick dose of thin CA on the inside would seal the grain and prevent that. It would likely need to be followed by another round of polishing to smooth out any rough spots that could occur.

Already had three more orders. Guess I will have to get busy again next week.