Last weekend, in the same session as my experiment with the segmented pencil, I made a “bullet” pen for a colleague. I purchased the kit in one of my first orders from Penn State Industries this spring but couldn’t decide what blank to use for the tube. I had thought deer antler or camouflage, because my friend is an avid hunter, and like me, is in the Army, but I couldn’t really find any antler and all the camouflage blanks on the market were really “cheesy”. I have it in the back of my mind that I could make a segmented blank in the Canadian Disruptive Pattern (CADPAT) camouflage, but I don’t have all of the tools to get this involved right now.
At any rate, after I turned the Mun Ebony pencil and saw how gorgeous the ebony turned out, I realized that it (the ebony) would make a nice rifle stock and so I decided to use another of these blanks.
As I mentioned in the last post, the blank turned beautifully and this time I took greater care in finish sanding. I had wanted to do a CA finish on this blank, but it didn’t work out and so I stripped it down and finished to 400 grit and a polyurethane finish, topped with Conservator’s wax. One of the nicest blanks to finish yet. I really must practice a bit with CA so that I can come up with a consistent finish. It’s not as easy as the YouTube videos like to show.
My friend is a Leather craftsman and I would like him to make a new sheath for an old knife that my Uncle George used on his homestead. Hopefully this will be a reasonable trade.
To Everything, Turn...Turn...Turn 