MATERIALS

We use a wide variety of materials when creating our items.  Here are the most common.

  • Natural Wood. There are seemingly endless types of natural wood blanks.  Some are fairly plain and some are exquisitely figured or burled.  Some of the most common are Maple Burl, Thuya Burl, Amboyna Burl, Boxelder Burl, Buckeye Burl.  They can also be dyed to change the color. 

         

  • Resin/Acrylic. These blanks are made by pouring resin in a mold.  The mold is then placed in a pressure pot to remove air bubbles.  Resin blanks come in an infinite number of colors.  Typically multiple colors are swirled together in the mold producing fantastic colorful patterns.

            

  • Hybrid. Hybrids combine resin and another material, usually wood, to create stunning blanks. 

          

  • Label Cast. Label Cast blanks are made by applying a printed image to a brass tube and then encased in a crystal clear resin.  These blanks hare highly customizable with pictures, logos, art, etc.

          

  • Fordite.  Also known as Detroit or Motor City agate.  These blanks are automotive paint overspray.  The oversprayed paint in the painting bays gradually built up on the tracks and skids that the car frames and bodies were painted on.  Over time, many colorful layers built up there. These layers were hardened repeatedly in the ovens that the car went into to cure the paint. Some of these deeper layers were even baked 100’s times.

          

  • Polymer Clay. Polymer Clay is a manufactured modeling compound that remains soft until cured in the oven.  The beautiful flowers, plants, birds, insects, and other animals are sliced off of a polymer clay cane and individually placed in the pen blank.  A cane is a log of clay which is created by layering differently colored and differently shaped clay pieces together to form a pattern or picture (the image runs all the way through the clay, but shows only at each end).  Sliced can be cut off the end to be placed elsewhere, yielding many little copies of the same image.  The can also be carefully compressed from the outside to reduce the image/cane.  This will give you a longer cane with a smaller image.

         

  • Specialty Pen Blanks
    • Antler.  Made from naturally shed deer or elk antler.
            
    • Watch Parts. Similar to label cast but instead of a printed image, watch parts are embedded in resin.

          

    • Cigar Band.  Authentic cigar bands are affixed to a turned blank and then finished with Cyanocacrylate.
            
    • DiamondCast.  What makes these different are the gem-quality diamond hips that produce unmatched brilliance.  DiamondCast blanks are made by combining rich pigments and brilliant diamond chips with resin.