Two Carbara Pens, originally uploaded by rgdaniel.
Two new pens in a new format I’m trying, called “Carbara”. One is the coffee beans in white acrylic seen earlier in a standard slimline, and the other — just in time for Christmas — is my Halloween pen… orange acrylic with black chrome fittings…
These pens are a little shorter in overall length than the previous styles, but with lots of heft in the hand. Nice balance overall, not too heavy.
Cat House Moon, originally uploaded by rgdaniel.
I just received a request from the good folks at Fluttery Records (www.flutteryrecords.com – site not working at time of writing) to use my image Cat House Moon as the cover of a forthcoming release by indie band Phoenix and the Turtle. Their EP is called “Swallow Up The Moon”.
Fluttery Records described themselves as “a very small independent label”, “more like an artists-helping-artists collective”.
Which reminded me of our own Great Lakes Musician’s Collective, of which I was a member for a while. I guess you’d say I’m an alumnus these days, having hung up the “sticks and tricks” for a while.
Anyway, I said “sure”. So if everyone buys their record, I get… well, nothing… but still… it seemed like a good idea…
I get requests to use photos fairly often. Mostly nobody wants to pay. Mostly I say “no” in that case.
This felt more like a “yes” opportunity…
Before I could continue working on the much anticipated TV stand (see artist’s rendering) I knew I had to make something else first. Not as a distraction or delaying tactic, though you might be forgiven for immediately suspecting that, but as a necessary step towards completing the project. I needed to build a miter sled. The exposed edges of the walnut-veneered particle board are to be covered with solid walnut trim pieces, which I have mostly milled and ready to cut to length. (Still deciding on final profile, I will probably do the round-over at the router table while I still can…
The idea of the miter sled is to allow the cutting of these trim pieces with sufficient accuracy that they will not show any gaps at the 45-degree joints at the corners. This is difficult using the standard table-saw miter guage.
The first photo shows the finished sled, in place on the table saw. I used Baltic Birch Plywood for all the parts, because I just love the stuff and it’s perfect for this kind of thing. I only use Home Despot plywood for catching glue drips, or similar demeaning tasks that are all it’s good for…
The eagle-eyed will have noticed that my outfeed table is actually my wife’s Honda Fit. It’s at a bit of an awkward angle, but in its defense it does get great gas mileage…
The reason for the numbers is as follows: rather than depend on the angle being a perfect 45 degrees, which is difficult to find in real life and prone to inaccuracy, the sled depends on the two angles being part of a perfect 90 degrees, which is found all over the shop… In this case, the factory corner of a piece of Baltic Birch Plywood (accept no substitutes) was found to be a perfect ninety, and formed the pointy bit on the sled, the bit with the very attractive visible screws. So long as you cut one half of the joint on one side, and the other half on the other side, you KNOW it’s going to add up to that perfect ninety. Or at least, I HOPED it would.
So I tested by cutting a piece of scrap (expendable Home Despot crappy plywood as it turns out) in half, then mitering one half on side #1 (left) and then the other half on side #2 (right). These should result in a perfect ninety-degree corner with no gaps.
Yay! Looks like it worked! Okay, no excuses, gotta get that trim glued on… Well, after I mill it to final profile…
The stinkwood is quite subtle, but rewards deep gazing… like a burl almost… not sure how much actual spalting made it into the finished pen here…
The coffee bean pen is anything but subtle… actual coffee beans embedded in white acrylic… it’s actually not bad to work, compared to pure acrylic… the coffee beans just turn to powder, or to coffee grounds I guess… smells like Starbucks when you’re working it… but it leaves a lot of little voids, which need filling with crazy glue and the coffee powder… I missed a few here, but still, not too bad… The centre band is purpleheart.
I had two blanks, and cut them to length in preparation for a larger one-piece pen style I’ll be trying out next. The resulting two offcuts were just the right size to combine for this pen. Waste not, want not…
This is a classic from Australian “60 Minutes” … a famous mystic and psychic channeler from the U.S. comes to Sydney and takes the Ozzie media by storm, culminating in a live performance… but all is not what it seems… hang in there, it’s worth it…
Two Acrylic Pens, originally uploaded by rgdaniel.
Plastic pens. Hmmm. Do I file this under “Woodworking Projects”?
They turned out better than I feared, and in fact they look better in real life than they do here — I think the flash gets INSIDE the plastic and scatters a bit, causing the visual noise. I toned it down a bit with the dust filter, but still. And that’s the other thing… being plastic, they attract every bit of dust in the room… static cling… and the turning process was horrible, I won’t be doing this again… but they look okay I think… couple of flaws but not bad…
These are available (i.e. not part of an order) Species include (l-r) curly maple (2), cherry (2), walnut (4) and a lone pau ferro on the right. Oddly, the four walnut pens are all quite different, despite coming from the same piece of wood and getting the same treatment… no two alike was never so true!!
Also introduced here for the first time… wire burns. This involves various thicknesses of instrument wire, held between pairs of wooden holders, pressed against the rotating piece to produce a burned-in black line detail. I think I like this best with two lines, as on the cherry pens.
Five More Pens (Sorry, I know this is boring), originally uploaded by rgdaniel.
Actually made 6 pens today, but one had a teeny tiny flaw that caused it to fail my stringent quality control. My wife seems happy to have it though.
This time we have (l-r) Paduak, Zebrawood (x2) and Pau Ferro (x2).
The Paduak and the first Zebrawood introduce the “satin nickel” finish, which I quite like. May get more of them… I only bought 10.
Five Pens for Karen, originally uploaded by rgdaniel.
Made these five “Designer” pens today, a new record! The trick is to not worry about the quality… that was a joke, they’re awesome… orders are piling up… Christmas is coming, hint hint…
From left to right, the woods are Pau Ferro, Lacewood, and Paduak, Paduak, Paduak. I’m LOVING the Pau Ferro, first time I’ve used this wood.
(click through to Flickr for larger sizes)
