Working with bloodwood again

Today I made the magnifier and letter opener from the bloodwood blanks and tubes that I drilled and glued yesterday. I did have to trim down the tubes that were sticking out of the blanks, but as I noted in my last post, this just made the whole thing a bit shorter - it did not keep parts from fitting together, as it would if it happened with a pen kit that had two pieces.

The items came out pretty well:






For some reason, the letter opener would not lay flat when I was taking its picture, which is why we get the knife-edge kind of photo.

Tomorrow, or later in the week, I will tackle the bullet tip pen. It may be easier to make the tenon with bloodwood than it was with cocobolo, as bloodwood is a harder wood, but I am not sure.

As I am making more gifts (and things to potentially sell), I am spending more time gluing pieces. For instance, the pieces of the kits that are pressed on to either end of the handles of the magnifier and opener are fairly loose. When I first started this process, I would not care so much, but now I am gluing the pieces on so that they stay put. All part of the learning curve, and of having pride in the work, I suppose. :-)