Emperor in rattlesnake

[SteveS]

I've had the blanks too long to recall what type of rattler it was.

[Arlin Eastman]

Very nice buddy.

[Gary G™]

Good combination

[chips ahoy]

SteveS said:

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I've had the blanks too long to recall what type of rattler it was.

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Dead is the best kind. Beautiful job on the pen.

Mel

[pprobus]

chips ahoy said:

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[blockquote]SteveS said:

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I've had the blanks too long to recall what type of rattler it was.

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Dead is the best kind. Beautiful job on the pen.

Mel

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[/blockquote]

+1 on all points!

[Bob Atchison]

It was the best kind of rattlesnake.....dead!

[Tapper]

SteveS said:

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I've had the blanks too long to recall what type of rattler it was.

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For someone who is not yet a turner, how did this work?

Thanks,

Doug

[SteveS]

First I took the castings to the belt sander to get a roughly circular shape and remove a lot of material quickly that would have otherwise taken time to turn away since the resin is very brittle. I used a combination of my Ci1 Easy rougher to get it to about 0.12" over the final diameter since it is very easy to get "pock marks" from tear out from the scraper. For the finishing I used the skew until it was pretty close then used 150 and 220 and finally 400 grit to smooth out the shape and remove the coarse scratches. Lastly I used automotive scratch remover with an old sock to polish out the sanding marks and get a mirror smooth surface.

[Axehandle]

My guess is that it is from a half grown Northern Pacific Rattler. Color and pattern fits and your location corroborates that as well.

[SteveS]

I bought it from a non-local guy on penturners.org so the snake could have come from anywhere.