Antler Letter Opener

[Doug B]

This is the new Letter Opener kit that is from Penn State. New to me anyway

Antler on Black Titanium. I do like the Black Ti plating a lot. The antler is from a shed that was pretty weathered and I would not have used it except that it came from a friend's ranch and he wanted it for a Christmas present for a friend of his, so this antler will have a little extra meaning. It actually came out with a very interesting look, and the CA stabilized it quite well even though it got into the marrow quite a bit and also had some pretty deep cracks. Very unique.



I like the CSUSA Letter Opener a little better...too bad because this one is a couple bucks less I got 4 more of them Oh well, they are pretty close to the PSI kit and I think they will match some Euro pens I have a little better than the PSI kits so it should work out.

(Edited by Knotty_Pine to re-size photo to meet 800x600 pixel photo sizing rule.)

Edit: sorry TJ. I resized it down to less than 100 KB and thought that would work...usually it does, but when I took this picture the camera setting was different than I usually have it for some reason

[admin]

Wow, very impressive. I've been thinging about getting some of those kits. Pens aren't really knockin' on my forehead, but some of the letter openers, now they catch my eye! AnY tips for budding Letter opener turners? I'm not going to put up with the stank of working with antler, but a nice piece of Cedar sounds tempting.

[Doug B]

They are pretty easy to turn TJ. They are long tubes, so some drill presses will not be able to drill the blank through in a single pass. I think the blank had to be about 2 3/4" long. And, I did not get the bushings for them so I had to make sure I used the correct bushings from my pen bushing sets.

Lets see, they still require a pen mandrel, and an adjustable one would be nice since they are like a single barrel pen.

They are a little pricey compared to pen kits - the ones I like are from CSUSA at $11.50 each.

All in all, they are probably a lot easier to make than a pen is

Cedar should work fine to make one with. In fact, I can't think of any material I would not use to make one.

Good luck! I'm looking forward to see the one you make