# Cigar's wood...???



## robutacion (Oct 29, 2012)

Hi everyone,

About a couple of years ago, I have put some blanks here for sale from a large Curly Gum tree that I had cut then.  Some of the blanks made from that tree were there ones.  I sold a few but, particularly the all dead/soft wood, did scare people off as I bombarded the add with "caution" signs about the handle of this soft stuff.

Reading through the Add, you can see what I mean and also what other though of it when they tried.  At the add closing time, I stressed the fact that, no one had made a pen from them and show it to all of us, of which I was extremely excited to see a nice pen done.  Two years later, and I'm yet to see a pen made with any of those blanks, soft or mixed...!:frown:

I knew that, they would be excellent candidates for stabilisation but, I didn't have the tools and solution to do it, attempts to use diluted PR resin, didn't do it for me so I stop processing them and those being process, were put a side, to a better day...!

That day has come, with the introduction of the stabilisation system and the Juice from Curtis (Cactus Juice).  I have done some others first, and with so many to try stabilising, I got to these Curly Gum root blanks, a few days ago.  Filled the vacuum chamber half full with them and, there it went a full gallon of juice to cover them up by 1" or so...!

I had no doubt that, if I had blanks that would drink this juice like is no tomorrow, these would to the bunch, I was correct, after they were done, wasn't much juice in the bottom of the chamber...!
Got them "cooked" and yesterday I decided to take one for a spin in the lathe and see how they come out.

I couldn't see much from the dry juice crust all over so, sanded both ends and put it in between centres and gave it a good "shave". Well, soft they were once, no more, they are as tough as nuts and cut like butter so after some 240grit sandpaper, I gave it my normal CA finish and the colour and grain popped out quick smart.

The very first though I had when I turned it down, and even before I touched it with the sandpaper was, "CIGAR" it looked like a damn cigar, closest thing ever so, gave it the gloss finish and admired the result outside in the sunshine, stunning stuff that was...!

Keep thinking of a cigar, I though that, the CA gloss finish may be not so suitable to make it look like a cigar, even tough it had the toughest coating/protection so, I put it back in the lathe and decided to remove the CA at one end and expose the raw wood.  The only thing I done after was to, soak that end with some drops of very thin CA and wipe it out before the CA dried, this is the result...!

I don't know about you but, anyone that makes cigar pens not pens with cigar kits, I'm yet to see anything better that resembles the true cigar tabaco look...!

What do you're reckon...???

Cheers
George


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## Lucky2 (Oct 29, 2012)

I love the look of the piece of wood, does the Gum tree have that grain throughtout, or is this a special piece?
Len


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## robutacion (Oct 29, 2012)

Lucky2 said:


> I love the look of the piece of wood, does the Gum tree have that grain throughtout, or is this a special piece?
> Len



I wish, that was part of the tree root and tree butt that were buried under lots of soil, pushed from the main road upgrade, many, many years ago...!

The soil has lots of moisture as a natural water spring is just about 10 meters away...!

Some chunks were pretty much all dead wood, the went to spotted spots with dead wood to spotted spots with live wood to half/half and then all live wood.  It was smelly, saturated with water/mud and all sorts of stuff that were buried with that tree butt, that never killed the tree but is was dying now of age and lack of feeding nutrients from the root system due to the dead wood...!

I'm still fighting today, with the live wood that was very green then, the damn think keeps moving and cracking in big pieces like if was "alive", many blanks were cut green, that either never made it or had to be re-sized about 1" smaller all around.  There the two main logs that I haven't slabbed yet after all this time looking at them and promising to myself to do it soon but, I had lots of smaller logs that I cut on site for bowl blanks, etc. so, I have been chewing on those...!

Cheers
George


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## mikespenturningz (Oct 29, 2012)

You are so right. These seem like they would be private stock that you would put out pens from! They look great and will make great cigar pens! You should put out a few pens and see what happens! I bet you will sell them quickly.


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## lorbay (Oct 29, 2012)

Man they are really nice.

Lin.


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## Mintman (Oct 29, 2012)

Wow, that looks fantastic!


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## robutacion (Oct 30, 2012)

mikespenturningz said:


> You are so right. These seem like they would be private stock that you would put out pens from! They look great and will make great cigar pens! You should put out a few pens and see what happens! I bet you will sell them quickly.



I have no doubt that you are correct, they would sell fast BUT, I turn more wood in some weeks, than most of you guys turn in a full year, I don't make pens for sale, I make them for gifts/presents and to show case a particular wood to certain people and also here for the annual PITH .  I make also some pens for the tree owners, together with bowls and anything else I can think off or, I'm request to make out of them. 

These blanks aren't part of my private stash (most of it are woods from overseas, the ones I can't get here in Australia), off-course I keep half a dozen or so of those very unique blanks I come to but, 98% of all my treasures are shared with everyone, I couldn't possible turn them all and as I normally say, "how good is a treasure, if no one can have/see/touch/ enjoy it...???"

I turn and finish so many pen samples that most, no one see, they are my private collection that I like to admire constantly...!:biggrin:

I get great enjoyment and self satisfaction by finding and bringing these treasures to light, they would be lost forever otherwise so, I may get bitten, hurt, exhausted and what else but, I'm not alone, I have the wife Merissa, that I can thank for her efforts to help me in every step of the way, from digging the dirt, getting the trees (woods) cut, dragged, loaded, unloaded, stored and processed, she does also the "mail run" so, credit to where/who it deserves.  I like to see these "different" go all over the world for people to enjoy, not everything in my life is about money, far from it...! 

Talking about the "Devil", let me show you the same wood stabilised with 4 dye colours from Curtis, (black, blue, green and red), each blank as a letter in black at one end, that represents the "initial" of the correspondent colour, if isn't obvious, anyway.  This was a test to see how much colours this dark wood would show, my suspicions were correct, don't show that much, reason why I used shorts for this test...!:wink:

Here we go...!

Cheers
George


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## maxman400 (Oct 30, 2012)

George those are beautiful, if you ever decide to sell some of those please send me a PM I have a friend as well as myself that would love to have some. The un-stabilized stuff would be great, he could do that.


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## MartinPens (Oct 30, 2012)

George,

I agree it looks like a cigar! Sending PM. : )

Sent from my iPad using Forum Runner


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## Russknan (Oct 30, 2012)

George, stunning, as usual! With your blanks, the art starts LONG before someone else puts a chisel to them. As to cigars, I can almost see smoke coming out of them. Russ


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## Russknan (Oct 30, 2012)

One more thing. Looking at Martin's avatar, I wonder whether it would be possible to come up with some grey wood with a lot of figure to look like a cigar ash, and segment it onto the end of one blank. Perhaps it would detract from the natural beauty of your blanks as they've turned out(?) Might be fun, though.


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## robutacion (Nov 3, 2012)

Well, about the grey wood, I have not attempted to make anything to imitate the burnt ash but, if is anyone out there that could give you a few pointers, Martins is the man, so ask him...!

Now, I know that, cigars are not all the same colours and or texture however, with the raw Curly Gum Root wood that I shown here, some shorts bits were stabilised with colour added to see how much colour they would show.  The wood been dark to start with, is not the best candidate to show colours but, on the individual samples/pics shown here, there are slight difference in between the 4 tests.

On the pics attached, I put the 4 samples together to allow a better comparative option to the differences resulting...!

What would be your favourite colour, including the raw/natural colour one, on the opening thread...???

Cheers
George


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## David Keller (Nov 3, 2012)

These look fantastic, George!  For my tastes, the black is my favorite, but I don't see a bad option in the bunch.  Good stuff!


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## robutacion (Nov 7, 2012)

David Keller said:


> These look fantastic, George!  For my tastes, the black is my favorite, but I don't see a bad option in the bunch.  Good stuff!



Thanks David,

Interestingly, moving these blanks from the sunshine, the various colours are hardly distinguishable, something that a bit of a surprise to me...!

I heard that, you have already sent your wishing's letter to Santa, I hope he sends you some nice...!:wink::biggrin:

Take care,
Cheers
George


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## Katya (Nov 7, 2012)

Oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy.......
I LOVE these blanks!  Gotta try and see what they look like in a pen!
Will PM you.  Hope you'll part with a couple, and I promise to send you a pic when I've used them.
Wow, sigh.  Just lovely.


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## Russknan (Nov 7, 2012)

*Dope alert!*



Russknan said:


> One more thing. Looking at Martin's avatar, I wonder whether it would be possible to come up with some grey wood with a lot of figure to look like a cigar ash, and segment it onto the end of one blank. Perhaps it would detract from the natural beauty of your blanks as they've turned out(?) Might be fun, though.



Having now seen some of Martin's work, I wanted to publicly acknowledge what a dope I am! Sorry Martin, at the time I left this comment, I didn't realize that you specialize in "cigars" with "ash" AND that they are very beautiful! Would love to see what you would do with one of George's creations!


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