So I decided to take a break from the small vase I was working on and do a few pens. I pulled out the medium CA to coat one two days ago, slowed down my back-and-forth too much riiiight at the end, and it snagged the paper towel out of my hand. Wrapped the towel around the pen and stuck quite nicely to it... hand to re-sand and re-coat :-/
Last night I found a cool little cutoff and decided to do another. It didn't snag the paper towel, but the glue wasn't dry at the ends (looks like I may need to replace my supply of aging CA). Turned it back on, wipe back and forth a few times, but it was too late... NOW the glue dried and I had white crap. Grrrrrr! So, out comes the sandpaper.
I decided to try something different this time around, though. I dug through my kit and found some random bottle of "ultra-gloss" polishing liquid. Well, it can't get any worse, I'm already sanding it. I grabbed some brown paper used as packing material in my latest shipment of toys from Amazon, put a few drops on, then rubbed until I felt heat on my fingertips. Wow, talk about an awesome change... not only did it lose the white dried CA look, it really did put a high gloss to the pen. The wood wasn't punky, but I wouldn't have classified it as solid, either... didn't expect such a soft wood to hold such a high sheen.
I believe the wood came from some Maple cutoffs destined for the trash heap... it's not spalted, but it had some sort of mottled appearance to it, like very light-colored wood mixed in with a more yellow-tinged base. Wish I knew for sure as it's going to a friend and I like to provide as much providence as I can. The shape is about as basic as you can get, but it feels surprisingly god in my hand... I'll try to get a pic up later this evening.
I'd be curious to know how others fixed those simple mistakes that invariably hit you right at the end of a project...
Maple Pen.jpg
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Originally Posted by Tony De Masi
