Some Pen Blanks

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Brmorgan

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Location
Williams Lake, British Columbia, Canada
This last weekend I went over the mountains to McBride, BC, to visit some friends and family there. I met an old fella that goes to my cousin's church there who is into penmaking; we got to talking wood and whatnot and he insisted on giving me one, so i told him I'd have to cut up a few nice pieces of different wood for him for payback. Perfect timing too, since I just got the shop bandsaw back online. I started out small but got a little carried away; here's the care package I'm going to send his way:

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L to R; top row: Black Locust, birch burl with a spalted piece on top, poplar (aspen) burl, and apple; middle row: Western Juniper, White Spruce compression wood, Western Red Cedar knot/burl, Douglas Fir old-growth root wood, and mistletoed birds-eye Pine; bottom row: 4pcs Lilac, 3pcs Douglas Maple, 1pc unknown but I think a cherry yard tree based on the bark; and Mountain Ash.

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I have quite a bit of apple wood that I've saved from yard jobs and the wood waste dump. Some is better and nicer than others. This darker stuff on top smelled like crap when I cut it; not apple-like at all but you could tell it was definitely from a fruit tree. The lighter stuff below it was somewhat dryer and had really no odor at all. The Black Locust came from just a small bit of the stuff I found at the wood waste dump back in early Summer. I just love the olive-green color of that wood.

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The aspen burl is still quite damp but the grain sure pops with the camera flash. It's pretty soft and has the odd punky spot, so will likely need some CA glue before turning. The Birch burl is mostly birds-eyed with some quilted grain around the edges; the shorter pieces (mostly hidden) were cut end-grained so we'll see how they turn out. That spalted piece came from the center of a small crotch I'd been saving. It's actually really solid still and is quite a gem of a piece IMO.

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The Douglas Fir pieces came from a big root that I cut off of a beach stump out at Quesnel Lake last year. It has some really wild grain and interesting pitch and mineral color streaks. Smells pretty nice going through the saw too. The cedar came from a knot and burl I cut off the side of a log a while back. The knot is hard as a rock and was harder on the bandsaw than the black locust or apple. It has some slight curl and figure to the grain in spots too but it doesn't pop out at you, at least not without any finish. The Spruce compression wood is about as hard as oak, if not harder. It has enormous stress in it. A couple pieces pinched the tablesaw so badly it stalled out the 2HP motor (no, I don't have a riving knife!).

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The three Mountain-Ash (not a true Ash) pieces on top came from a crotch I saved from a pruning job last year; it was near the end of a dead branch and has started to decay a bit, hence the color variation compared to the pieces on the bottom, but it should be plenty solid enough to turn.

I'm not sure what the reddish piece in the middle is. It came from a small chunk of a yard tree I picked up at the wood waste dump last year. The bark looked like either cherry or maybe a smaller crab apple; it was quite dead so I have no idea if the color of the wood is natural or due to decaying processes or what.
 
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These four Lilac pieces are by far my favorite though:

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I just noticed that the dark grain at the right-hand end of the top piece really looks like a bird's head and neck. How strange.

They came from a ~3" X 24" piece of Lilac that my brother gave me three or four years ago after they cut down a big ol' one. Unfortunately it's sat around so long that the piece developed an enormous drying split right from end to end and a lot will go to waste; I got these four pieces from the bottom 12". This stuff is HARD, harder than the apple, I'm sure by the feel of it. And does it ever have a unique smell to it; very fragrant but not really like Lilac flowers. When it was first cut down, it had the most beautiful grape-juice-purple color to it; this has faded as it dried to a sort of brownish-magenta which is still really nice. It actually reminds me a lot of Olive wood, but more pinkish. I sure wish I could find more of the stuff; Lilac bushes/trees hardly ever grow that large around here simply because there isn't enough history here. I remember climbing in a huge Lilac tree that my grandma had when I was a kid back in Ontario; must have been a good 6" diameter at the base.

I think I'll ask the guy if he would make me a pen and pencil set out of two of the Lilac pieces in return.
 
Beautiful wood!!! That will make some awesome pens!!!
 
I don't do much turning on the lathe, don't even have one, but have made a couple pens. Here's one out of Amboyna Burl.

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Nice! It is something I've never done but really want to get into. As you can see, I have no shortage of small interesting pieces of wood that aren't much good for anything else but I hate to throw away, so they just sit around cluttering my life up. I have a small midi-lathe that I picked up at the scrapyard back in the spring; the motor was blown but everything else is OK, but I haven't been able to find a suitable replacement motor yet. Once I do I should be in business.
 
Thats me to...

As you can see, I have no shortage of small interesting pieces of wood that aren't much good for anything else but I hate to throw away, so they just sit around cluttering my life up.

Thats me too...I been hating to trow anything with a nice grain away...
 
Nice! It is something I've never done but really want to get into. As you can see, I have no shortage of small interesting pieces of wood that aren't much good for anything else but I hate to throw away, so they just sit around cluttering my life up. I have a small midi-lathe that I picked up at the scrapyard back in the spring; the motor was blown but everything else is OK, but I haven't been able to find a suitable replacement motor yet. Once I do I should be in business.
Brad,

Doesn't the lathe have a belt from the arbor to the pulley? Or is it direct drive? If it has a belt you should be able to use most any motor, it's typically the direct drive units that are difficult to replace. Any 1HP-2HP motor should work fine for a lathe like that, I would imagine. Most old machines clean up really well...
 
Brad,

Doesn't the lathe have a belt from the arbor to the pulley? Or is it direct drive? If it has a belt you should be able to use most any motor, it's typically the direct drive units that are difficult to replace. Any 1HP-2HP motor should work fine for a lathe like that, I would imagine. Most old machines clean up really well...

Yes, it has a belt, but the motor was a tiny little 1/4 HP that was mounted under the bed and used a little sewing machine/vacuum cleaner type belt to drive the spindle; it had a variable-speed control as well so there are no step pulleys involved, and the headstock is so small that I'm not sure I could fit a regular A-series pulley in there and run it off a regular motor somehow. I can't find a small replacement motor right now for it. I have a couple 12V ones that would probably work but that introduces a whole new set of issues.
 
Yes, it has a belt, but the motor was a tiny little 1/4 HP that was mounted under the bed and used a little sewing machine/vacuum cleaner type belt to drive the spindle; it had a variable-speed control as well so there are no step pulleys involved, and the headstock is so small that I'm not sure I could fit a regular A-series pulley in there and run it off a regular motor somehow. I can't find a small replacement motor right now for it. I have a couple 12V ones that would probably work but that introduces a whole new set of issues.


Post a picture of the motor..

FYI...take a look at the motor that is inside the powered carpet attachment for a central vac...it's a powerful
universal motor that easily adapts to speed control...1/4 or 5/16 inch dia shaft.. has a small belt pulley.....if you're lucky , you may see one pitched out on garbage day.
 
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Post a picture of the motor..

FYI...take a look at the motor that is inside the powered carpet attachment for a central vac...it's a powerful
universal motor that easily adapts to speed control...1/4 or 5/16 inch dia shaft.. has a small belt pulley.....if you're lucky , you may see one pitched out on garbage day.

Well I would post a pic but it was smashed and I threw it away long ago. It was about 3.5-4" diameter, permanent magnet. This is the lathe I have:

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I know it's a tiny pic but it's the only one I could find.

The speed control is also FUBAR (the lathe was returned defective and "destroyed in field" at the store and thrown in the scrap bin) , so I'm not sure what to do there. If the motor is small enough I could run it off a rotary fan dimmer control probably, but I don't think that would control a universal motor. I do have two old stand-up vacuum cleaners kicking around that are no good anymore so they might have a decent motor. I'll have to check.
 
Yes, it has a belt, but the motor was a tiny little 1/4 HP that was mounted under the bed and used a little sewing machine/vacuum cleaner type belt to drive the spindle; it had a variable-speed control as well so there are no step pulleys involved, and the headstock is so small that I'm not sure I could fit a regular A-series pulley in there and run it off a regular motor somehow. I can't find a small replacement motor right now for it. I have a couple 12V ones that would probably work but that introduces a whole new set of issues.
Brad,

Check Surplus Center for both motors and pulleys. I like to look for motors on craigslist, they often go cheap. You can get small motors from Surplus Center which are reasonably priced though. It's once they start getting bigger that people want a lot of $$$s for them.
 
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