Bog Oak finsih

[Pvt_Ryan]

My brother has asked me to make him a couple of pens:
A Fountain Pen
A Ball Point Pen
A Gunmetal Pencil.

He wants them made with Bog Oak, I normally finish my pens with BLO & CA. But is that a suitable finish for such pens or does anyone know of a better finish?


Ryan

 

[cornucopia]

CA/Blo works fine on bog oak but you may find the wood will benefit from being grain filled before applying the finish- you can do this a few ways but the quickest is to use a couple of coats of thin CA neat and then cut it back and apply CA/Blo as normal

 

[myturn]

My favourite way of finishing bog-oak is using liming wax which provides a nice contrast to the black and shows up the grain. If it's just finished black it may as well be plastic. I don't use CA on pens, I don't like the finish nor the feel of it but I did try it on a limed bog-oak pen without any problems except it did rather obscure the liming. The next one I used friction polish which looked a lot better.

Also best to use a silver/chrome/titanium finish pen with the black, gold looks a bit too "bling" IMO.

 

[Pvt_Ryan]

Mick,

Agreed with the comment about Gold!!

Is this the stuff you are suggesting:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Liberon-Limin ... 4cfb226722

Edit:
and what grit would you suggest going to? I normally go all the way to 12000.

 

[myturn]

Mick,

Agreed with the comment about Gold!!

Is this the stuff you are suggesting:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Liberon-Limin ... 4cfb226722

Edit:
and what grit would you suggest going to? I normally go all the way to 12000.

My liming wax is about 20 years old and packaged differently but, yes, it is essentially the same thing.

Whatever grit you like to go to will do, I rarely go above 1500 as that's plenty fine for me on wood.

Here's a badly lit photo of one I made that is limed then waxed, I didn't even use friction polish on this one so the wood feels like wood. The liming is more visible in real life and proper light.

 

[Pvt_Ryan]

That is nice, how many coats did you give it?

Does it last long or does it need to be re-coated?

 

[myturn]

Two coats of liming wax then another two of carnuba I think. I can't say how long it'll stay like that as I made it quite recently and it's not been used yet. I'm hoping to sell it at my next craft fair.

 

[stevebuk]

This is a bog oak pen i made some time ago, quite open grained but looks lovely when finished.

 

[myturn]

That's very brown Steve, all the bog-oak I've had has been as black as ebony.

Here's an earlier one I made from bog-oak which shows the effect of the liming wax better. I don't like the gold finish with this wood but someone did as they bought it.

 

[jpt]

I use a straight blo/ca finish and it works well.

I have tried liming wax, silver paste a nd gols to highlight the grain and prefer the gold paste.

john