Pattern “recipes” links?

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TheCraftyCarver

TheCraftyCarver

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Not sure if this is the exact right place for this question, but I figure it's close ☺️
So, I'm totally new to all this turning stuff, but one thing I enjoy doing is making blanks. Blanks for pens, blanks for bottle toppers… I enjoy the gluing and pattern making and seeing what happens on the late.

So far, I just make sandwiches of thin pieces of wood, but I'm looking to expand and be more creative. I've looked into herringbone patterns, & inserting foil into the wood for Celtic knots, but is there a good resource for other patterns?

I'm big into cooking & work well with visual cues (especially visual directions I can print out) so I'm looking for something like a recipe to follow; like "place your wood exactly in this order shown in the drawing/photo, turn it down & it will look like this". Very A+B=C type stuff.
I've browsed Pinterest but haven't found any useful links for this sort of thing. Do you guys have any links you want to pass along?

photo for funsies; this is my usual "sandwich" patterns, but I'm looking to spice it up with something else.
959F0B9A-0DF2-434B-860C-DB7745BB060C.jpeg
 
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In my experience, it is hard to find or "dream up" a pattern that departs much from the "sandwich".
And they all require some rather skillful and time-consuming work with the saw and other tools.

I have not seen any "recipes" per se ... a la "cook books". . . Others may offer more ideas.
Celtic knots are one .... but they are kinda old .... and can be tricky because they have to be close to perfect in order to look good.
There are lots of examples of these.

One thing I have been thinking about for a long time is what I call "random" laminations of random thickness (all thin) of various woods mounted in groups at angles to each other ..... but not all "random patterns" (self-contradictory, I know) look good together.
ExoticBlanks ... sometimes ... has some for sale in their "Wood Artistry" section .... currently only one ... "Segmented pen blank 09A".
My meaning will be somewhat clearer if you have a look at that one.

Keep up your search and let us know what you find ..... preferrably with pics of your resulting pens !! . :) ;)
 
magpens said:
In my experience, it is hard to find or "dream up" a pattern that departs much from the "sandwich".
And they all require some rather skillful and time-consuming work with the saw and other tools.

I have not seen any "recipes" per se ... a la "cook books". . . Others may offer more ideas.
Celtic knots are one .... but they are kinda old .... and can be tricky because they have to be close to perfect in order to look good.
There are lots of examples of these.

One thing I have been thinking about for a long time is what I call "random" laminations of random thickness (all thin) of various woods mounted in groups at angles to each other ..... but not all "random patterns" (self-contradictory, I know) look good together.
ExoticBlanks ... sometimes ... has some for sale in their "Wood Artistry" section .... currently only one ... "Segmented pen blank 09A".
My meaning will be somewhat clearer if you have a look at that one.

Keep up your search and let us know what you find ..... preferrably with pics of your resulting pens !! . :) ;)
Click to expand...
I've seen the "chaos blanks" and yes, I agree that some "chaos" blanks are less attractive than others and some are cool. I'm just a bit scared with those- unless I manage to glue up all the pieces with the grain in the same direction, I run the huge risk of chip/blow out. I have watched some YouTube's on them and the biggest failures seem to come from losing a piece due to "grain mismatch catch" when something is running in a different direction than the piece next to it. I might just try varying thickness of laminates and 1/8 boards and try cutting them on a bias, but I'm not sure how that would look. 🤷🏻‍♀️
 
IMHO, it is best to keep all the lamination grains aligned to try to avoid that problem of chip/blow out .... can still happen of course.
Gluing of the laminations has to be very secure.

Cutting on a bias does not always look cool.
 
The first thread below is fairly long but has postings of SEGMENTED pens from way back. Mostly it is not for posting comments, but just picts of pens. Look when you have plenty of time because each thread can be fairly long, and some great pens can be overlooked if done in a hurry.

https://www.penturners.org/threads/no-comments-just-post-new-segmented-pens-and-likes.111419/

OTHER THREADS of pens of different designs:

IAP Collections:

The IAP Collection

Photos of the IAP's physical collection of pens. Curated by Mark James
www.penturners.org

Pens for inspiration:

Pens for Inspiration

www.penturners.org

Photos from Pen Contests;

Photos from Contests & Events

www.penturners.org

Shop Shots:

Shop Shots

Show us your workshop!
www.penturners.org

(Click on the BLUE thread titles above if the link is not showing.) I included the one on the "Shop" because you were asking in an earlier thread about shop/organization/storage.

WHEN you find a pen you like, copy the link or photo, and ask how to do it. Some PDFs may be in the library. But it doesn't hurt to ask on the forum.

Hope these help.
 
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leehljp said:
The first thread below is fairly long but has postings of SEGMENTED pens from way back. Mostly it is not for posting comments, but just picts of pens. Look when you have plenty of time because each thread can be fairly long, and some great pens can be overlooked if done in a hurry.

https://www.penturners.org/threads/no-comments-just-post-new-segmented-pens-and-likes.111419/

OTHER THREADS of pens of different designs:

IAP Collections:

The IAP Collection

Photos of the IAP's physical collection of pens. Curated by Mark James
www.penturners.org

Pens for inspiration:

Pens for Inspiration

www.penturners.org

Photos from Pen Contests;

Photos from Contests & Events

www.penturners.org

Shop Shots:

Shop Shots

Show us your workshop!
www.penturners.org

(Click on the BLUE thread titles above if the link is not showing.) I included the one on the "Shop" because you were asking in an earlier thread about shop/organization/storage.

WHEN you find a pen you like, copy the link or photo, and ask how to do it. Some PDFs may be in the library. But it doesn't hurt to ask on the forum.

Hope these help.
Click to expand...
So much good stuff! Thanks!!
 
Those Trompe l'oeil cutting boards are cool but translating it into small round objects would prove difficult if not impossible.
 
Keep searching and asking questions... and you'll be on your way. Someone from IAP taught me this over 10 years ago. Don't know if I could repeat now or not... Been a long time. Don't even know what it is called.
 

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PreacherJon said:
Keep searching and asking questions... and you'll be on your way. Someone from IAP taught me this over 10 years ago. Don't know if I could repeat now or not... Been a long time. Don't even know what it is called.
Click to expand...
Looks like a whole bunch of pieces with dovetail profiles with banding in between.
 
Like Hank says plus a little more detail. A dark board and a light board glued together. Crosscut on an angle. Alternating flips with spacers of a dark wood between. Once glued they can be cut again to make a bunch of blanks.
 
TheCraftyCarver said:
Not sure if this is the exact right place for this question, but I figure it's close ☺️
So, I'm totally new to all this turning stuff, but one thing I enjoy doing is making blanks. Blanks for pens, blanks for bottle toppers… I enjoy the gluing and pattern making and seeing what happens on the late.

So far, I just make sandwiches of thin pieces of wood, but I'm looking to expand and be more creative. I've looked into herringbone patterns, & inserting foil into the wood for Celtic knots, but is there a good resource for other patterns?

I'm big into cooking & work well with visual cues (especially visual directions I can print out) so I'm looking for something like a recipe to follow; like "place your wood exactly in this order shown in the drawing/photo, turn it down & it will look like this". Very A+B=C type stuff.
I've browsed Pinterest but haven't found any useful links for this sort of thing. Do you guys have any links you want to pass along?

photo for funsies; this is my usual "sandwich" patterns, but I'm looking to spice it up with something else.
View attachment 310148
Click to expand...
This was a document (Design Considerations) Mark James sent me a couple weeks ago that I found to be exactly what I was looking for at the time.

When you click the link, then click on the blue download button in the upper right corner.
 
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