Chillicamper
Registered
Here's something completely different - I know a lot of people don't like the fancy PSI pens, but a friend asked me for something more gothic, so I tried this one. It's probably one of the lesser offensive PSI designs. A gothic pen with red jewels and made from Asian striped ebony. The pictures don't really capture the subtle striping in the dark timber. I'm quite pleased with how it ended up. I have to sand this down to about 2000 as the dark wood seems to show up every little scratch/blemish, but I didn't like the actual pen mechanism. It didn't feel as good as say one of Dan's Zetas.
The picture below is definitely not the best pen I've ever made in fact it might be my worst, but without doubt the most difficult. Made from a flowering climber - Wisteria which was cut down at mum's years ago and saved and dried. The grain is very open and almost de-laminates at each annual ring when turning despite using a very sharp skew chisel, trying to soak it in CA and taking minute amounts off at a time. As such the wooden insert on this pen is not quite the perfect size. I thought it would fall apart if I turned it any smaller!
I should have left it and not made it up into a pen really, but after an hour in the shed fighting this one, I wanted to see what it looked like.
It has a wonderful grain pattern though. I may need to see if I can stabilize the wood with resin before I try and turn another.......But that means investing in more kit - and I don't have any spare cash at the moment......so I won't be doing that for a while.
Here's the wood I was working with
And here's the pen
.....the best that can be said about it is the grain is a nice colour and I learnt a lot! 
The picture below is definitely not the best pen I've ever made in fact it might be my worst, but without doubt the most difficult. Made from a flowering climber - Wisteria which was cut down at mum's years ago and saved and dried. The grain is very open and almost de-laminates at each annual ring when turning despite using a very sharp skew chisel, trying to soak it in CA and taking minute amounts off at a time. As such the wooden insert on this pen is not quite the perfect size. I thought it would fall apart if I turned it any smaller!
I should have left it and not made it up into a pen really, but after an hour in the shed fighting this one, I wanted to see what it looked like.
It has a wonderful grain pattern though. I may need to see if I can stabilize the wood with resin before I try and turn another.......But that means investing in more kit - and I don't have any spare cash at the moment......so I won't be doing that for a while.
Here's the wood I was working with
And here's the pen
.....the best that can be said about it is the grain is a nice colour and I learnt a lot! 
