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Australian #44 Shiraz Red Vine - Stabilized clear rounded PEN blanks

George

  • 1400


Australian #44 Shiraz Red Vine - Stabilized clear rounded PEN blanks

Packs of 4 Blanks

Blanks size approx. 19 mm round x 130mm long approx.

Packs weight of approx. 200gr.

Please select the number of packs you want and add to "cart".

These blanks are some of the ones that I managed to salvage from the borer infestation that devoured 80% of my stock, all blanks salvaged had to be stabilised to prevent any further borer infestation, most blanks have some small borer holes from the little devils, giving the wood some extra character.

Some blanks were stabilised with clear CJ and other with dyed CJ of various colours.

These blanks were originally cut too close to the finished size, while not totally dry so, during the drying process the wood moved a fair bit.  This has become even more of a problem when the wood had to be stabilized to protect/salvage from the eating bugs infestation that occurred at the time so, when the wood had to be cooked for the curing of the stabilization solution, the blanks really took on various shapes, no of them suitable to be sold as square blanks so, I took the time to turn on the lathe, every single blank, and make them "presentable" however, a little more material was lost so, the blanks are a little skinnier than normal size pen blanks, ideal for smaller diameter pens...!

Shiraz Red wine is a well famous wine from this part of Australia, produced in the next town from here, the McLaren Vale.

There is a long and interesting story about how he  (wife and I) got these vines and that can be seen/read in here but, one thing I can say, for the first year the unprocessed vine was untouched by any bugs but, all of a certain, an infestation was present from tiny little bugs that apparently love to eat vine when is half dry.

I lost 50% of all my unprocessed stock (had to burn it) and the rest had to be processed (oversized) in a hurry and stabilised with Cactus Juice to kill and prevent any further damage to the vine.  Some of the vines were quite hard and stable, while other were quite soft and difficult to work with without some sort of hardening process so, the necessity to stabilize/treat all the vine in stock, was quite an expensive exercise but, was the only way I could salvage these unique vines, they produce one of the best wines from the region, for 40 long years so, not something that I will get again, in my lifetime...!

 

Thank you for visiting...!


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