bottle stoppers - the production run....

it was such a nice day today, i decided to cut the blanks, with the lumber on hand, for the production run of the bottle stoppers. this is a day long to be remembered for me, i finally got around to cutting up one of my 3 small (12.5" by 10", by 4.5" thick) blocks of cocobolo. over the last several years that i've had them, there is a small amount of checking. i managed to salvage 25 blanks for the bottle stoppers. the ones with bad cracks will be rendered down for pen blanks. (could be 2-3 dozen). i also rendered down a certain block of chocolate that i had recieved from the ambassador. i hate to say it, but there was some checking due to being in my dad's basement, and i managed to get 15 really nice blanks. the blanks are really light, so i think there will be no problem there. as with the cocobolo, the rest will be used for pen blanks. all in all, i managed to get 114 blanks cut today. it sure was fun having a bandsaw with the muscle, and the right blade to go through those blocks like that.

here's the lineup of the wood i will be using, 12 different types....
(left to right in the first pic)

cocobolo olivewood lignum vit. osage orange

kingwood padauk redwood burl spalted curly maple

walnut cherry mahogany curly maple

if the weather stays nice, i'll probably turn them later next week. tomorrow i will also be cutting the 4 sets of arched candle holders from the brazilian cherry leftovers.

Dan looks good. I like the color of Paduk. You sure about the OO though. Looks very brown to me. Stuff i have is very luminescent yellow and brown.

You got your work cut out for you here.