Been making a bunch of sierra-style (sierra, wall street, aero, tapa pacifica, and others) for a client. Needed a change of pace. Started this pen weeks ago, and finally managed to finish it. Finally finished drying the finish today, which came out nice and shiny (not really evident here, I need to figure out my lighting situation better, but the Pens Plus finish is like glass!) and assembled:
The blank was my first "sidegrain" (I guess you would call it, its like a bowl blank where you cut through alternating end grain and sidegrain) pen blank with knots in it. There were a couple of evident cracks at the surface, and I filled them with some black CA. As I turned, however, more and more kept showing up. I kept filling with CA, sanding, filling with CA, until I very slightly started to undercut the bushing. Decided to just call it quits on the CA fill at that point, and finished with Pens Plus. Probably around 8-10 coats, on top of an initial saturating layer of plain old Doctor's walnut oil. The pens plus mostly filled in the remaining voids from the cracks... I really love the blank, looks amazing otherwise, but it is a lot of work!
The blank was my first "sidegrain" (I guess you would call it, its like a bowl blank where you cut through alternating end grain and sidegrain) pen blank with knots in it. There were a couple of evident cracks at the surface, and I filled them with some black CA. As I turned, however, more and more kept showing up. I kept filling with CA, sanding, filling with CA, until I very slightly started to undercut the bushing. Decided to just call it quits on the CA fill at that point, and finished with Pens Plus. Probably around 8-10 coats, on top of an initial saturating layer of plain old Doctor's walnut oil. The pens plus mostly filled in the remaining voids from the cracks... I really love the blank, looks amazing otherwise, but it is a lot of work!
