A few more... Wood species help?

[Alex Franke]

Here are a few more pens I did over the weekend. I'm a little unsure of the wood species, so I'd appreciate any input from the pros out there! I got a box of blanks from woodturnerscatalog.com that included Padauk, Zebrawood, Rapala Lacewood, Marblewood, Holly, Bloodwood, Yew, and Canarywood. Some of these are a lot more obvious than others! (The last one has a a couple coats of tung oil, followed by 3 coats of CA, then Hut PPP. The others just have the CA and PPP.)

I'm also working on the best way to photograph the pens, so suggestions there would also be much appreciated. I tried leaning the pen up against a blank like I've seen others do, but they kept slipping off... :/ Plus unless I bound the flash off a nearby wall, the shine just seems distracting...

These are all gifts, too. The third one is for a musician (obviously).

Kit: Apprentice Roadster, Gold

Kit: Artisan European, Black Titanium

Kit: Artisan European, Gold

Kit: Apprentice Roadster, Gun Metal

[leehljp]

The top one looks like the canarywood;
Second one: I want to say Yew but could be a light padauk.
Third one: Marblewood
The bottom one does look like the zebrawood to me.

You have a nice shine on each for no finish. I will give you something to watch for on the "no finish" for pens. The wood on pens goes through a totally different environment than wood in woodworking. It meets with light dirt, sweat and hand oils many times a day; for those in a shirt pocket, those encounter considerable humidity. And pens often go through far more humidity changes and a wider variation of temp changes than most furniture that stays in a more controlled environment of a home. Also, Imagine walking into a kitchen where you see the soiled hand marks around the knobs of the cabinets. That is why a good finish is wanted on the cabinets - to make the easy to clean. The same for pens. They really look good new and can continue to look great - but that comes with the price of meticulous cleaning . . . or prevention by a using a good finish.

Quite a few wood workers initially hate the covering of such beautiful wood with a solid protective finish. The alternative of not having such a finish shows up within a few months. However, if cleaned and cared for, it will do OK. Some woods lend themselves to hand rubbing and cleaning better than others.

As to shine - I ran a little experiment a few years ago and was able to totally coat a pen with CA finish, bring it up to a shine and then dull the finish so that the wood could show through more. Here is a link to the post:
http://www.penturners.org/forum/show...ighlight=shine

IN that post, there are two identical pens, one with a nice shine and one without, but both were finished with a generous coating of CA.

[Alex Franke]

Sorry, Hank -- I could have been clearer, and I'll go back and fix it. What I meant by "natural" was that there was nothing on the other pens that might change their color. On the first three I used three coats of CA and Hut PPP wax/polish. On the last one I did the same, but after a few coats of tung oil, which darkened the wood a bit.

I was thinking padauk for the second one, and actually I couldn't decide between canarywood and yew for the first -- I haven't worked with either before and from the photos online they both looked similar. I have marblewood and zebrawood for numbers 3 and 4, too, so that's a good sign. Thanks!

[LCHIEN]

Photo hints

To take good pictures, bouncing flash off the wall is a good start. But this is more controllable: Photo Tent. See pic attachment. They come in multi sizes, for pens you need a smaller one, but bigger won't hurt. They have one side partially open to stick the camera lens through. You shine multiple lights on the outside of the tent to get wonderful diffuse shadowless light inside , and no reflections of surrounding stuff (you just have to position the item so as not to reflect the camera and lens). Get a glass plate up on supports and make it look like your item is floating. A tripod, closeup lens attachments all help. Using multiple fixed, lights rather than flash is possible so you can see exactly what you get. It appears that CFLs of 5500-5700°K color temperature are the preferred lighting for these tents now eliminating hot incandescents and giving perfect daylight color. Accent lights can give you controlled highlights if you want them.


If you go to eBay and search for Photo tent you will find all sizes with and without auxiliary lighting options. They fold up flat. Get a little bigger one for photographing other wood projects.

http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-12-INCH-LIGH...ht_4206wt_1031


See this article like this on how to use a light tent:
http://www.nxtprograms.com/help/photos/stage3.html

another site selling tents and some instructions how to use.
http://www.ezauctiontools.com/