Spalted mango and pacific yew modified slimline

[NGLJ]

My buddy guitar maker asked me to make an inlay on the head of a guitar using 3/16" spalted mango. After completing the task on my CNC I had a piece left over. Being thin I had to laminate and I used pacific yew as an accent wood. I have never turned spalted mango before but with going slowly and using thin CA occasionally I made it to the end. Please see attached.

 

[Kalai]

Nice job, I like spaulted Mango. If you ever get some spaulted Autograph tree that stuff is great looking and it is still hard, not soft like most spaulted wood is. Aloha.

Kalai

 

[NGLJ]

Hello again. It is quite rare here to come across spalted Mango. I think my friend purchased it from somewhere in the US. I have not come across the Autograph tree. You have the benefit of living in a semi-tropical climate.

 

[its_virgil]

Very nice one piece slimline. I've used mango for pens and really like it. Thanks for sharing. There are several ways to modify a slimline other than the one piece modification. There are a couple of inherent issues with the one piece slimline. Here is a link to an article outlining the issues and offering a solution for them. Thanks again for showing us your work.

one+piece+improvements reduced.pdf

drive.google.com

Do a good turn daily!
Don

 

[NGLJ]

Very nice one piece slimline. I've used mango for pens and really like it. Thanks for sharing. There are several ways to modify a slimline other than the one piece modification. There are a couple of inherent issues with the one piece slimline. Here is a link to an article outlining the issues and offering a solution for them. Thanks again for showing us your work.

one+piece+improvements reduced.pdf

drive.google.com

Do a good turn daily!
Don

Thanks for the link. I have experienced the issues mentioned in the article. I have found that the difficulty to twist the nib and difficulty to remove the lower assembly can be related. If the assembled pen experiences those issues I have found that it is most likely due to some misalignment between the lower and upper parts of the pen. Accurately drilling over 4.5 length is much more difficult than 2 pieces roughly half of that for the standard slimline. To minimize the potential problem I always turn the blank to as round as possible before drilling. I can usually tell as I push the lower section into the finished barrel based upon the resistance that I feel. I take ¼" bit and ream out the barrel slightly widening the inside of the nib end at the same time. Care is needed because of the very thin material at the nib end. If this works the lower assembly slips in easily and securely, and is removed quite easily using finger strength on the nib. If I do get it "stuck" I wrap several layers of tape around the nib to protect it. Then I use soft jawed pliers to remove the lower part. This usually means that I did not ream out well enough. When I first started doing this I did lose some turnings due to breakage at the nib. As always, experience is a teacher!