#372

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Hawaiian Koa and 24ct Gold Plated Ballpoint Twist Pen

KOA - Acacia Koa

Koa's colour can be highly variable, but tends to be medium golden or reddish brown, similar to mahogany. There are usually contrasting bands of colour in the growth rings, and it is not uncommon to see boards with ribbon-like streaks of colour. Boards figured with wavy and/or curly grain are also not uncommon.

Although Koa is naturally quite abundant on the islands of Hawaii, most Koa forests have been cleared for grazing pastures; and since young Koa seedlings are edible for grazing animals, most new trees are prevented from growing to timber-harvestable size. As a result, mature Koa trees are either scarce, or in hard-to-access mountainous locations, and the price of Koa is likely to only increase further in the future. Australian Blackwood is considered to be a more sustainable, and visually/mechanically similar substitute.

Koa is widely considered to be the most beautiful and useful of Hawaii’s native hardwoods.

We had arranged to travel from Blisworth to Fenny Stratford for the first ever Fenny Stratford Canal Festival. Luckily we just about had enough stock to trade with after the busy weekend in Blisworth. We weren't expecting too many towpath visitors as these events do take a few years to build up a reputation. 

The chief organiser had cleverly decided to host the event on the same day as a local Fenny Poppers day a few streets away. Early on Sunday morning we walked Dudley Boar Dawg in a now familiar loop around the local highstreet and back down the canal. The stall holders were bust setting up as were the music stage and fair ground. The stalls looked fairly run of the mill and an uninspiring mix of the usual food outlets charity and tombola type stalls. It transpired that the fairground owners organised the stalls and only granted low value participants access so that visitors had plenty of money for their fairground rides, sneaky. It was a blessing for the five of us canal traders that made it there for the day as we did a roaring trade.

It was a scorching hot day on the Sunday with plenty of power going into the batteries via the solar panels so I set the lathe up and turned a few of the pen blanks that I had drilled and glued over the last few days. We even had a visit from the dignitary in the way of the Mayor and Mayoress of Milton Keynes who treated themselves to a pair of pens. We were made to feel very welcome by the local villagers of Fenny Stratford and even invited to the organisers BBQ after we had closed up the shop for the evening. Definitely a location to bookmark for the future. 

Having said our farewells we made our way briskly back up the Grand Union Canal stopping overnight on the edge of Milton Keynes and Weedon Bec before arriving once again at Whilton Locks

Pen #372 was turned at Whilton at the bottom of the Buckby Lock flight.