Post by Doug B on Jan 12, 2010 22:01:01 GMT -6
Please bear with me on this one...it is a long story, but an interesting one. My brother is currently in central PA, but brought his family back to visit for the Christmas holiday and to help out with my mother because she recently had a knee replacement.
I had not visited with my brother since I watched him drive off more than a year ago. So we talked about a lot of things, including woodworking and penmaking. He mentioned that his neighbor in PA ran a sawmill and was currently re-claiming old barns that were over a hundred years old and were getting a lot of Chestnut wood. Now, I know the history of American Chestnut and so I asked if he could get any of that old Chestnut and send it to me to make some pens with.
A couple of days ago I got a medium flat rate USPS priority mail box from PA filled with American Chestnut
It is nothing special to look at, and he said in his note to me that it might turn out to be nothing more than 100 yr old Dutch kindling
So, I rumage through this box of pen blanks he cut for me and found one that still had some of the nail holes in it. The stain in the wood from the nails looked interesting and I thought I might just go with the old rustic and antique look and try to incorporate the nail holes in the final product. I chose antique brass finish for the pen kit (what else could possibly be any better than that?) and use a Saturn pen kit.
I only managed to save a single nail hole in the turned upper barrel, but that included 2 holes. They both went clear down to the brass tube, so I knew that I needed to fill the holes. I used 15 minute 2 part epoxy and some very dark blue transtint dye to fill the 2 holes.
When I put the epoxy filler in the 2 holes there was some excess that I tried to wipe off the blank, but the wood is kinda like Oak and the course grain just held onto that dark epoxy and I realized it was not going to come off...period. So, on the spur of the moment, I decided to try to stain both barrels with the dyed epoxy mix and let rough wood grain retain that dark dye. It looked pretty good at first and I impatiently waited for the epoxy to cure.
Then I sanded the barrels down and finished with my standard CA process. I was really taken back by the end results. I know there will be differing opinions about the look, but I really like it. Very, very rustic looking, and one of the most successful off the cuff experiments I have ever attempted.
Let me know if I have completely lost it on this one...
And the back side of the pen:
I had not visited with my brother since I watched him drive off more than a year ago. So we talked about a lot of things, including woodworking and penmaking. He mentioned that his neighbor in PA ran a sawmill and was currently re-claiming old barns that were over a hundred years old and were getting a lot of Chestnut wood. Now, I know the history of American Chestnut and so I asked if he could get any of that old Chestnut and send it to me to make some pens with.
A couple of days ago I got a medium flat rate USPS priority mail box from PA filled with American Chestnut
It is nothing special to look at, and he said in his note to me that it might turn out to be nothing more than 100 yr old Dutch kindling
So, I rumage through this box of pen blanks he cut for me and found one that still had some of the nail holes in it. The stain in the wood from the nails looked interesting and I thought I might just go with the old rustic and antique look and try to incorporate the nail holes in the final product. I chose antique brass finish for the pen kit (what else could possibly be any better than that?) and use a Saturn pen kit.
I only managed to save a single nail hole in the turned upper barrel, but that included 2 holes. They both went clear down to the brass tube, so I knew that I needed to fill the holes. I used 15 minute 2 part epoxy and some very dark blue transtint dye to fill the 2 holes.
When I put the epoxy filler in the 2 holes there was some excess that I tried to wipe off the blank, but the wood is kinda like Oak and the course grain just held onto that dark epoxy and I realized it was not going to come off...period. So, on the spur of the moment, I decided to try to stain both barrels with the dyed epoxy mix and let rough wood grain retain that dark dye. It looked pretty good at first and I impatiently waited for the epoxy to cure.
Then I sanded the barrels down and finished with my standard CA process. I was really taken back by the end results. I know there will be differing opinions about the look, but I really like it. Very, very rustic looking, and one of the most successful off the cuff experiments I have ever attempted.
Let me know if I have completely lost it on this one...
And the back side of the pen:
