Redfirbark by ron hossack

Preparing Red Fir Bark for fly rod grips and Pens

This simple tutorial is made using “Red Fir” (Doug Fir) Bark but can be usedwith any bark that is thick enough to get rings out of for either pens or fly rodhandles and reel seats.

Some Pine Bark (Bull Pine) here in the Northwest is thicker and makesattractive pens and grips also.

I first did this when I noticed that my wife had gone to the local Walmart andcame home with some very large chunks of 'beauty bark' for her flowergarden.

I was supposed to be helping spread that stuff in her garden.By Ron Hossack Washington State USA

I grabbed about 6 large chunks and headed to the garage and made somerings and glued up a grip in about 30 minutes and turned it.

This got me to thinking about where I worked in the Silver Valley of Idahowhere there were lumber yards primarily for Red Fir.

I started grabbing large chunks of bark and hauling them home to let then dry.

To make the bark rings you will need something to cut the rings (I use aDeWalt 1 5/16” Deep Hole Saw for grips and a 15/16” for pen blanks.

There are some precautions you need to take when working with bark.

1 – Wear some type of gloves.

There are microscopic splinters that hurt like the dickens if you don't weargloves.

I use the NITRILE GLOVES from Harbor Freight.

2 – Use some kind of dust mask.

Same reason, this makes a ton of dust.

This is a side view that shows how thick the bark is and how colorful. Someof the bark is 4” thick.

By Ron Hossack Washington State USA

The bark is very wormy and can be a challenge to fill the voids so I useCA and there's plenty of sanding dust and or coffee grounds as a filler.

Here's some rings cut and waiting to be trued. You can see the differentcolors in the rings and the hole saw I use.


Here is the simple jig I made for truing up the rings:


This jig is some scrap 3/8" plywood, 1/4" all thread (which doubles as mymandrel for these grips) and some 1/4” fender washers. (That is Teflon tapeas I used some Titebond III and it's very caustic and stained the all thread).

I made it 90 degrees by using a plastic drafting triangle.

This old tossed away dishwasher is my drying box for my wood I collect.I pulled the pump and use a shop light through the hole with a 75 watt bulband it'll keep it about 90 degrees even in winter with snow on the ground.

This is how I use it with my belt/disc sander to square up the rings.


To square the simple jig to the face of the sanding disk I again use the plasticdrafting triangle and square the table to the disk face.


Here are some rings that are glued up with Titebond PU glue that I'm going toturn some pens with.

The Fender Washer is to separate the pen tubes so they don't get gluedtogether. When turning these I use drywall sand paper and Nortons sandpaper. It'spretty soft and chisels tend to bite and tear.

Here's a picture of one on the lathe being ready to turn into a fly rod handle.

Notice the filter mounted to a box fan before it was shaped and after.


This is what it looks like five minutes later.


This is why it's important to wear a mask for safety and health reasons.

Once I finish sanding to shape it is ready for either a CA finish orBirchwood-Casey Tru-Oil Gun Stock finish.

More than one coat of Tru-Oil and the bark will not dry unless I give it analcohol bath first to remove the resin from the wood.

Here we can see the top grip finished with Tru-oil and the bottom grip Ifinished with Medium CA.


Redfirbark by ron hossack

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