A friend gave me a couple of offcuts of Zebrawood from a project that he had done. By my reckoning, I could get 4 pen blanks out of these pieces. My niece who ordered the Creamsicle Acrylic, also wanted a pen and pencil in Zebrawood. I have a book that discusses the dramatically different pens you can get from cutting the blanks at a different angle (in terms of grain direction). This book specifically shows Zebrawood as an example and so I thought that I woud try cutting across the grain to create a pen and pencil that is not normally seen. I have a Zebrawood Conductors baton where the dark lines run parallel to the turning. Now I understand why.
This wood is extremely difficult to turn cleanly, especially cross grain in this way. At the ends of the pen tubes, the wood kept tearing out, exposing the brass of the tube. I decided that I would attempt to make repairs to these spots using shavings and CA glue. I also didn’t realize at the time that there was a nail hole in one of the blanks and so I thought that I would fill that as well. I was quite happy with the repairs and went back to turning the pieces when one of the tubes split in half. Usually, when this happens, the pieces fly around the room, but this time the single piece landed on the ways of the lathe and so I thought I would see if I could glue it back on and finish the pen. The piece fit cleanly back on the pen and I was able to gently finish turning it.
Because of all the repairs made with CA, I decided that I should finish the pen in CA as well. On one of the forums that I read regularly, a fellow pen-turner (one much better than I), shared his method of CA finishing. I followed it to the letter and can now see a time where I will start to achieve the excellent results that he gets when using CA. These are still not perfect, but for the first time, I was able to have a nice consistent finish with no dull blotches. Overall, it was a great experiment. See if you can identify the repairs in the pictures.
To Everything, Turn...Turn...Turn 