Progress of the combination pen

So far, so good...the combination padauk/purpleheart pen made it through the next stage. I was able to trim the barrels without any splitting of the wood. The next stop is the lathe.

Something intriguing in the ongoing mystery of the colour change of purpleheart: Trimming the ends of the blank introduces a lot of heat (via friction) to the wood. It seems that the introduction of that heat deepens the colour of the purple in the wood. It is possible that introducing heat to the blank after it is turned on the lathe (and after sanding, I guess) would deepen the colour on the finished pen.

To test the theory, I may turn a purpleheart-only blank to where it is brownish, and then put it in the microwave or oven to see if I can induce a change.