well I have finally manged to get back on my lathe. It has been over 2 months since I managed to make something and what I day it was 37 degrees. You should never look a public holiday in the mouth so I pressed on. Back in January this year I collected some dead wood while we were on holidays in Kangaroo Island. I found some Dryland Tea-tree a locally occurring shrub.
I have never used this wood for turning and I was pleasantly surprised. The wood has a nice two-tone effect that makes the finished pens look great. The blanks were prepared by cutting to length which is approximately 55 mm. The brass tubes are glued in with Araldite.
When the glue has set the blanks are mounted on a pen mandrel with the bark still on the pieces. The wood is then shaped on the lathe, sanded and finished in one go. I use super glue to finish the pens. The glue is applied directly to the spinning wood and spread with kitchen paper towel.
I also made another pen using a timber called Purple Heart a South American species. It looks nice but looks very similar to Jarrah when finished.
