# Purpleheart Indianblanket



## mikemac (May 4, 2009)

First time with this pattern, learned a few things, will be trying it again.
Its a fairly time consuming project, but produces an interesting pattern. 
You end up making more sawdust that penblank! 







Anyone have any tips from when they tried it?


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## TomW (May 4, 2009)

Wow....you have WAY MORE PATIENTS than I do.

Great Job.

Tom


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## spitfire (May 4, 2009)

I couldn't even imagine how long it takes to put a blank like that together. Looks great.


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## USAFVET98 (May 4, 2009)

Do I hear "tutorial"?


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## mikemac (May 4, 2009)

Sure...  you need to check our our WELL STOCKED Library
http://www.penturners.org/forum/showthread.php?t=735&highlight=indian+blanket

Full credit to Jeff, extremely well written tutorial.


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## Jim15 (May 4, 2009)

Awesome pen.


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## markgum (May 4, 2009)

Great work...


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## workinforwood (May 4, 2009)

mikemac said:


> Sure...  you need to check our our WELL STOCKED Library
> http://www.penturners.org/forum/showthread.php?t=735&highlight=indian+blanket
> 
> Full credit to Jeff, extremely well written tutorial.



Or...look at the home page :wink:

anyhow...I just wanted to say WOW!  You really nailed it.  The proportions look perfect and you nailed 8 strips into a little Baron kit.  Most people have not tried, but it is really simple in concept but not easy to pull off.  Purpleheart adds to the difficulty due to it's harness.  You lose a ton of wood in saw dust, but it's worth it.  I see you paid attention and kept to your tube width and solid purple sides..that is exactly the way it should be.  I've seen some not understand that concept and skip the side walls resulting in a sick blanket.  This is truly the best non-me blanket I've seen anyone else do into a pen...I'd bow if there was an icon.


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## OKLAHOMAN (May 4, 2009)

Fantastic job!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!





workinforwood said:


> Or...look at the home page :wink:
> 
> anyhow...I just wanted to say WOW!  You really nailed it.  The proportions look perfect and you nailed 8 strips into a little Baron kit.  Most people have not tried, but it is really simple in concept but not easy to pull off.  Purpleheart adds to the difficulty due to it's harness.  You lose a ton of wood in saw dust, but it's worth it.  I see you paid attention and kept to your tube width and solid purple sides..that is exactly the way it should be.  I've seen some not understand that concept and skip the side walls resulting in a sick blanket.  This is truly the best non-me blanket I've seen anyone else do into a pen...I'd bow if there was an icon.
> 
> ...


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## PenTurnerfromMaine (May 4, 2009)

Very nice


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## hilltopper46 (May 4, 2009)

WOW - nice pen!


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## devowoodworking (May 4, 2009)

Very nicely done Mike!!


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## wdcav1952 (May 4, 2009)

Mike, when I first saw the pen, I thought you had gotten one of Jeff's blanks.  Trust me, that is a compliment!!


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## hewunch (May 4, 2009)

Very, very nice!


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## Stick Rounder (May 4, 2009)

WOW!!  That is amazing.


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## thewishman (May 4, 2009)

Beautiful work! And I don't even like purpleheart.


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## NewLondon88 (May 4, 2009)

thewishman said:


> Beautiful work! And I don't even like purpleheart.



I might just start liking it now.. :biggrin:

Great job!


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## JohnU (May 4, 2009)

Great looking pen and your hard work shows! Everytime I see one, I make note to self to try it, now if only I could find the time.  Again, Outstanding!


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## Bikerdad (May 4, 2009)

Looks like purpleheart and maple?


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## mickr (May 5, 2009)

beautifully executed


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## jyreene (May 5, 2009)

That makes me want to try that pattern even more.  Looks spot on.  Great work.


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## neurotictim (May 5, 2009)

Subscribed.  I gotta try this.


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## jkeithrussell (May 14, 2009)

I've read the tutorial and am planning to try it this weekend.  Question, rather than using the table saw and losing so much wood to the kerf, couldn't you make the rip cuts on a band saw with a good fence to keep it straight?


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## mikemac (May 14, 2009)

Yes, I guess you could, but from my experience, the edge you get from the bandsaw is too rough to allow a clean joint on glue-up.  Also, the spacing from using a tablesaw allows for a better PATTERN gap.  Just my 2 cents   It turns out you WANT to loose that material, for it to line up right.

Mike


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## VisExp (May 14, 2009)

Mike, I missed this when you first posted it and I'm really glad the thread resurfaced.  Great work on the segmenting.  The pen looks awesome!


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## CSue (May 14, 2009)

Awesome work!


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## Ligget (May 15, 2009)

WOW! That is excellent, I don`t have the patience to do that!


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## workinforwood (May 15, 2009)

He's exactly right Keith.  You want to lose the material.  If you are making 1/8" strips, use an 1/8 kerf blade.  If you want 1/16" thick strips, use a 1/16" blade.  You need clean cuts.  I cut them clean as I can then drum sand the strips carefully to remove any minor saw marks before gluing.  If there was no wood removed from the kerf of the blade, then it would not make an indian blanket.  Part of the design works off the missing wood.  Mike gets it.  The key is to try and loose the same amount of material off each side.  So if you make 2 small passes in the drum sander, flip the strips and make 2 on the other side.  you make more passes on one side, it messes up the blanket.  It's so simple a theory, but not a simple practice.  Mike really nailed it dead on, and his seams look great.  I can't see a bandsaw working out.


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## mikemac (May 15, 2009)

Now, if I could only find a 1/16" blade for my tablesaw


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## talbot (May 15, 2009)

Hard work and very time consuming but what a result!
Great pen.
regards, Bill


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## johncrane (May 15, 2009)

Awesome! great job! great looking pen! that's a keeper in my book.:biggrin:


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## workinforwood (May 15, 2009)

mikemac said:


> Now, if I could only find a 1/16" blade for my tablesaw



No problem.  Ace sells them, and so do the big box stores.  Freud makes them.  Technically the blades are for a circular saw, but they can be used in a table saw no problem,  you just can't cut wood that is as thick because the blade won't go up as high, but  you might start to get hooked on the bonus performance that a thinner blade has to offer.  It will increase the hp of your saw, and you will cut your sawdust generation in half.  It can make a board that would have gained 7 blanks into 8 blanks.  You can find thinner blades than 1/16 on the internet if you keep looking.


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## jkeithrussell (May 15, 2009)

How do you guys think it would look to make the indian blanket blank out of cherry with maple and perhaps a little walnut on the accents with the other blank turned from turquoise tru-stone? 

I'm trying to work out a couple of issues on the rip sled, but I'm going to try this project this weekend.


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## cinder_ladylocket (May 15, 2009)

Wonderful pen...........wow!!!


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## johncrane (May 16, 2009)

Should look good l recon.:biggrin:


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