Corn on the cob pen turning?

Steve Blackdog · 7 Mar 2012

Has anyone turned corn cobs? I had my first setback this evening, when I found the dog had eaten one of the 'blanks' I'd been drying out. (I suspect it will go right through him!)

How hard do they get? Mine were woody, but still soft enough for the dog to eat (hammer). I had mine next to the wood-burner to dry them quickly, but is that the right way to season them?

If anyone has any pics, I'd be very interested.

Cheers

Steve

Neil Farrer · 8 Mar 2012

Steve,

Best of luck on your endeavours with the corn. I tried several times but gave up and ended up buying the cobs from Stiles and Bates! I dried mine uncovered in the fridge, stopped the mould after I had eaten the goodbits and washed the garlic butter off! Very good dehumidifier the fridge! Once dried I then drilled the first one and it ended up with a 13mm ish hole drilled with a 10mm drill. I tried again, and then again. So I bought a stabilised blank and tentatively drilled it with a 6 or 7mm hole before using a 10mm bit. That was about a year ago and its still sat on the shelf!!

nev · 8 Mar 2012

another failure here too

the critters found mine in the shed! and the one bit they left never seemed to dry!

just did a spot of googling and one suggestion is dry for at least 3-4 months http://www.penturnersparadise.ca/forum/ ... php?t=3784
another suggestion is to bake at 100 for a few hours then leave for a week (see step 2 http://artofmanliness.com/2010/08/09/ho ... -cob-pipe/)

Think I'll be taking Neils route if i ever find myself leaning that way in the future.

jpt · 8 Mar 2012

Drying them is the easy bit it is preparing them for turning that is the difficult bit. They are too soft to turn unless stabilised with resin to do that you need some sort of vacuum chamber where you can put a container of resin with the cobs inside then vacuum for a while to make sure the resin goes through the cob.

I have brought a few of the ready made ones to turn and lost about 50% of them due to voids etc so not going to bother again, also they dont sell very well.

john

Steve Blackdog · 8 Mar 2012

That's a nice looking pen John.

I'm interested to hear they don't sell well. I would have thought they would, if nothing else because it is so interesting to have a writing implement made from recycled edibles.

I may end up scrapping this project and feeding the other blank to the dog