I recently picked up a snakewood pen blank to turn for a pen project. I have been looking into it and it looks like snakewood can be problematic to turn on a lathe since it is very dense and brittle. Anyone have any suggestions on working with snakewood? I was told that it is similar to turning acrylic blanks which I have done successfully…
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Make sure your tools are sharp and turn the lathe speed up pretty high and you should be fine
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I’ve turned snakewood before, too. Sharp tools as @Briang284 said are imperative. I use carbide tools for my pen turning work. Also, I sand the corners off of the blanks on my belt sander so that the blank starts off sort of round. I then use the diamond carbide tools to start the cut. It allows you to make smaller cuts initially until you get the blank closer to round. Take gentle cuts initially, too. Then I use the round and/or square lathe tools to smooth the shape.
https://www.rockler.com/full-size-ergonomic-carbide-turning-tool-diamond
Lastly, as you get closer to the desired pen diameter size, don’t be afraid to use a 40 or 60 grit sandpaper to finish turning (cutting the blank down). Snakewood is far too precious to bust it up by taking too aggressive of cuts. Then just run through the different gits of sandpaper until you have the desired smoothness and finish. I usually go to a minimum of 400 and usually much finer than that.
Good luck. It is a beautiful wood.
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Got an update. I have successfully cut and drilled the snakewood blank. I also glued the brass tubes in as well. Hopefully it doesn’t crack when I turn them tomorrow. This wood is definitely very dense and interesting to work with.
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I’ve never turned snake wood. If as you mention it is similar to turning acrylic blanks, you may benefit from using a negative rake carbide inserts:
I definitely will need to look into a negative carbide rake for acrylics. I just picked up a parting tool for a particular step on this pen I’m working on. Apparently you have to turn down a small part of the blank to the brass tube for one of the parts to fit the cap.
Looks like I am going to build up a collection of lathe tools soon including some traditional ones.
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