Still life with fruit, a coupla pens

[germdoc]

Here is one of the first fruits of my labor, i.e., one of the first cross-grain bowls I didn't break or otherwise screw up. It's made from birch which I harvested from my front yard. I love the grain pattern. It's not as smoothly turned as some of my other efforts, but since I gave those away as gifts, it'll have to do. It's finished with Danish Oil.





The pens are made from lacewood and acrylic, respectively. I LOVE turning acrylic pens. And I love the fact that people I give the pens to can't believe they are handmade.



This makes up for a frustrating day yesterday where not much went right...[B)]

[boblon]

The pens lookd really good and the bowl looks great to me.

Was that birch seasoned already? If not, did you rough turn it and let it dry or treat it / boil it / microwave it / soap it / or ?

Looks good.

BobL.

[Whaler]

Great work Jeff, I like them all.

[mater]

They all look great to me. Very nice work.

[monte]

Very nice work Jeff.

[Chuck C]

Like them all, beautiful work, Jeff

[Doug Jones]

Really enjoy the acrylic pen. Is it any different to turn than wood or corian is? How do you finish it?

[Bruce Platt]

very nice work, the banana is so realistic looking.

Is danish oil food safe? I have been using mineral oil for my bowls.

Bruce

[germdoc]

Acrylic is really easy (and fun!) to turn. Using a sharp spindlemaster tool gives a pretty good finish. I then wet-sand it from 180 to 2000. (I know a lot of penmakers use even finer grits.) Finally I apply Johnson's paste wax and burnish it out.

Unfortunately, as I was setting up the mandrel to turn another acrylic piece last night, I got a 7mm tube stuck on the rod. Not sure why this happened, but the rod had a few scuff marks on it, and there may have been a little extra CA glue that wasn't dry on the inside of the tube. I got a little medieval with it with some pliers but it still wouldn't budge, so I ended up scraping it off on the lathe with a skew chisel (which will obviously need to be reground). Now the rod's warped beyond repair so I gotta order a replacement.

I don't think Danish oil is recommended for surfaces in contact with food--mineral oil or pure tung oil is ideal. Anything we put in that bowl foodwise would be wrapped or peelable.

The birch is fairly dry as it was cut down 6 mos. ago and has been in my garage ever since. I did rough turn that blank and dried it in the microwave about 3-4 minutes, then finish turned it. It still warped and cracked a tiny little bit, but since it's a "rustic" bowl I don't really care.

[Flyingscooter]

great job!
The only trees i've got on my property are Black Locust. haven't tried turning that yet. might be something to consider...

[kyle.w]

nice work

[tribalwind]

wpw that acrylic looks like some kinda animal horn.
beautiful job

[bigstick509]

[germdoc]

I gave the pens to a patient of mine who is a woodcarver--he carves "vintage" duck and loon decoys for Cabela's. For a holiday gift he brought me a fiberglass casting of one of his loon decoys--really overwhelmed me. The casting is handpainted and is so accurate it even reproduces the cracks and the nails on the patch from his original design.

The pens were the least I could do for him, though it's not really a fair trade--his work is so much better!

I think I've said before--the only thing I like better than making pens and other items is giving them away.