Pen wood surprise

Here are a few pens I have turned recently. The 2 on the right are from laminated bamboo! The laminated bamboo is cutting boards I found at the Habitat Restore and a clearance store. I really like the feel of the pen with vertical lamination's. The horizontal lamination was easy to work and finished very nicely as well.

Some new pens and problems

Caragana brothers and sisters.
Some very nice patterns!

This past several weeks I have been trying to get into the shop more often to do some turning. There have also been some new woods added from unusual places. I have found a new source of good hardwood and even some unusual woods at The Habitat Restore. The local store gets hardwood door samples from closeouts etc. and sells them for a very reasonable price. I paid $3 Can for about 12 X 12 inch doors and chose hickory and birch this trip. They had lots of oak and cherry doors as well. Even though the doors are usually coated, they cut up and turn quite nicely. I could not believe how hard hickory is! No wonder it gets used in bats. The outside frame is 3/4 inch and if there is a centre raised panel it is 5/8. There were even solid doors of laminated cherry for instance. Each paneled door makes 12 to 15 blanks plus there are lots of odds for other projects.
The hickory centre panel worked very good to make my first perfume applicator. Here is a good pdf of the kit.

One thing which has been disturbing is the darkening of pores in the wood with finish sanding. This really shows up in the very light woods. My answer is that I have been sanding over the bushings and transferring filings to the wood. It takes a lot of learning to get this process right.

Still, this is a very satisfying thing to be learning and working at!