I gathered several large gumballs ( not hard to do in my yard :BangHead: )
Holding it by the stem I flattened the top on my belt sander until i found the core. Then I did the same thing to the stem side , in effect making a small " cookie " I then glued these " cookies " together and compressed them slightly with a clamp . It took 4 per side . Once dry I soaked them with CA then came back to them later and drilled . A sharp skew ( thanx Fred :icon_thum ) , lots of honing, lots of CA ( Glenn, I have seriously considered the 5 gal bucket :mrgreen: ) and some med CA to help fill the voids
I have ( I hope ) a better idea for the next one and I will share that process if it works out ....it looks good on paper anyway :gar-La;
Thanx for the kind words everyone . Like the pine cone pen, I hope the next one will look even better ! Still looking for large cones to try that pen again