Chaos pen

rfas · Sep 25, 2021

I was just playing today and made a chaos pen. I took cutoff scrapps from making a cutting board and randomly glued them up. Sliced it into 1" wide strips on a 45, flipped every other piece and re-glued. Sliced again in a 45 and re-glued to make a big chaos blank. Today I cut my first pen blank out of it and turned it. Interesting effect! I will be able to get quite a few more pens out of this mess and each one will be unique. Not bad for scraps that I otherwise would have tossed! Woods are maple, cherry, walnut, and purpleheart.

MRDucks2 · Sep 25, 2021

I actually would have expected more chaos than showed in the pen.

rfas · Sep 25, 2021

MRDucks2 said:
I actually would have expected more chaos than showed in the pen.

I'm sure It'll get more chaotic as I get further into the blank. The chaos is actually there on this one, it's just subtle between the cherry and maple. I should have a lot of fun with the rest of this blank.

MRDucks2 · Sep 25, 2021

Keep the photos coming of them for comparison.

sorcerertd · Sep 25, 2021

I'm with Mike. I thought it would look more chaotic, but will definitely be on the lookout for the next pens from that glued up mess.

Kcimdrib · Sep 26, 2021

I made a similar chaos blank a while ago and got very interesting results I'm sure when you cut more the result will be better. But its a bit hit and miss.

sorcerertd · Sep 26, 2021

Kcimdrib said:
I made a similar chaos blank a while ago and got very interesting results I'm sure when you cut more the result will be better. But its a bit hit and miss.

For a second there, I wondered why you had it cast in clear resin like that. Then I saw it was just the stand.

rfas · Sep 26, 2021

Kcimdrib said:
I made a similar chaos blank a while ago and got very interesting results I'm sure when you cut more the result will be better. But its a bit hit and miss.

I turned one more pen today and, while it looks beautiful, it's even less "chaos" than the first one. I decided to slice the blank and shuffle one more time. A lot of the squares were too large in relation to the tube. I may even do one more pass after this one. At some point I have to worry about too many little tiny squares and glue joints that may not hold up on the lathe, but we will see. This is a lot of fun to play with though.

rfas · Oct 2, 2021

I made one more pass through the saw to get more "chaotic.". I think I've found the sweet spot.

Kcimdrib · Oct 3, 2021

I like it worth going one more time. Don't make to many cuts because as you said you finish up with to many small pieces.
Good looking Pen.

Chaos pen

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