A few Celtic Knot pen blanks

Terry Quiram

Member
Messages
212
Location
Roanoke, Illinois
Getting ready for the Midwest Penturners Gathering next month. I have been putting together Celtic Knot pen blanks for the last month to build up my inventory. At the same time I have been stabilizing as well. The gathering is a pretty small venue but we always have a great time visiting and watching demos.
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Good stuff - what do you use to cut the really small ones? Those are some fine little slices (unless you're doing the cut all the way through method - in which case you're glue up alignment is impressive).
 
Nice job Terry, Those really require some precision on both the cuts and especially drilling the holes.

You look like you have it mastered! Well done!
 
Vaughn the multi-colored blanks take some extra work. I sit at my bench with color and an eye dropper. The spalt lines act as a barrier for the colored resin so I am able to create pockets of color. I apply dye to the pocket until the color soaks through to the other side. I can easily spend hours coloring 20 blanks. Next the blanks are cooked off to harden the resin. The final step is to soaked them under vacuum in clear resin so that the areas that haven't been colored get resin and then bake again. I cook them 2 hours at 200 degrees in a toaster oven. There is always cleanup of the blank on the belt sander after the baking operation and re-squaring the ends again on the table saw.
 
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Vaughn the multi-colored blanks take some extra work. I sit at my bench with color and an eye dropper. The spalt lines act as a barrier for the colored resin so I am able to create pockets of color. I apply dye to the pocket until the color soaks through to the other side. I can easily spend hours coloring 20 blanks. Next the blanks are cooked off to harden the resin. The final step is to soaked them under vacuum in clear resin so that the areas that haven't been colored get resin and then bake again. I cook them 2 hours at 200 degrees in a toaster oven. There is always cleanup of the blank on the belt sander after the baking operation and re-squaring the ends again on the table saw.

They are really quite pretty, worth the effort I'd say. I was showing them to LOML and was wondering how strong the end product ends up - she was thinking that something similar would make a really fancy set of knitting needles (probably for circulars so the final piece would end up 2mm (smallest) to 6mm (largest) in diameter and maybe 4-5" long) so they're pretty thin/long - there are some made from stabilized wood so it seems plausible...

Thanks again for sharing these!
 
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