Dye and Stabilize Part II

A blog post ago, I showed images of stabilizing a holly blank with blue Cactus Juice (tm). Here are more images from that piece, which the client ordered today!

On the lathe now, the blank gets roughed to approximate shape.

Then it's sanded up to 800 grit.

I realized that the dye hadn't darkened the wood to the shade the client wanted, so I applied the dye directly to the blank and let it cure.

Here I drew out a sketch in pencil in preparation for the pyrography. I wood burned the requested design in by hand, then followed it up with ink to increase the contrast in the dark blue wood. I sanded it again afterwords at 600 and 800 grit, which helped the dye blend with the wood grain without affecting the pyrography.

Nine layers of durable cyanoacrylate cover the image, shown here before buffing and polishing.

After buffing and polishing, I lay out all the parts in preparation for assembly.

I apply the parts to the wood using a pen press. This pen receives identical couplers to either end, to which the nib and tail screw.

With the spring and ink cartridge installed, this pen is ready to write.

And here's the finished pen (shown upside-down, but will be right-ways up when you write).