Rattlesnake PenI used a rattlesnake pen blank and a Black Titanium Carbara Pen kit to build this rattlesnake pen. These blanks are more difficult to turn compared to wood or regular acrylic. Care must be taken because the acrylic can be easily lifted off the surface of the snakeskin because of the chemicals used to tan the snake hides. Sharp tools must be used.
The blanks come with the brass tube already inside the skin and acrylic. Therefore you do not need to drill and glue the brass tube.
You will however have to size the blank and square the ends. The sides of the blanks are also removed during the sanding process. See the drawing that came with the blank for this detail.
The edges were sanded and the blank was placed on the lathe. I used a spindlemaster lathe tool to turn the blank down to size. The lathe tools must be extremely sharp. I stopped 4 times to hone the tool while cutting the blank to size. I stopped cutting short of the bushing size. Sandpaper was used to complete the projects. I used micro mesh and an acrylic finish to complete the blank. The blank was assembled using a pen press. More ideas can be seen at my web site:
http://nokeswoodworks.com/
The rattlesnake blank and pen kit came from: Arizona Silhouette at http://ArizonaSilhouette.com .
2 comments:
Wow.. It just goes to show that being in the biz for quite some time knows how to enhance his own perfection! It is a beautiful way to think when you take something and make something different out of it..
I ordered one of these rattler snake pen kits from Arizona Silhoutte. The acrylic was not cured correctly and broke out in chunks. I have made many of these pens and never had this happen before. I contacted Arizona and they said I was not turning it correctly and they would not replace it. I have made many, many acrylic pens and never had a problem before.
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