My name is Inigo Montoya... oh wait, it's actually Bryan McWhirt. As the topic says, I'm from Indiana. By day I am a Sr. Site Reliability Engineer for a medical holdings company out of St. Louis Missouri. That basically means I do very high level tech support for our software developers to make sure they are able to deploy updates to, or new applications.
About 3 years ago I decided to start playing around with woodworking and quickly learned that making a simple box is not simple. You need two or three million clamps, a decent set of engineer squares so your tools cut with 90 degree angles and so on.
About 7 years ago I started to get interested in fountain pens, which to this day are my favorite writing instruments. Unfortunately my favorite and most used pen, my Lamy 2000, is currently in need of a bit of nib repair. I really need to quit carrying it in my pocket, as the cap comes off which leads to the nib getting bent as well as stained pants.
Recently I decided I wanted to try my hand at making my own pens. From my woodworking experience I know this is going to take some practice and that the first 50-100 or more pens are not going to be as nice as I would like. Practice and failures are the tools by which we learn the most. With that in mind I didn't want to go out and part together all of the best tools I could afford just to learn with. So I picked up the Penn State Industries 12" Super Pen Making Starter Set. It looks like this gives me almost everything to start making simple basic slim kit pens. I've not set everything up yet because my garage/workshop is not yet heated. However it does look as though the carbide tools in this kit are more suited for detail work and not roughing or shaping. For adding detail to woodworking projects I have some Pfeil gouges which are amazing, but they don't seem to make anything suited for a wood lathe that I was able to find. So a decent roughing carbide tool is one thing I still need to find and buy.
I eventually want to get to the point where I can make custom/kitless wooden pens using Japanese urushi lacquer. That is still pretty far away.
So while it's still cold out and I can't do any work, I'm just reading and watching videos to gather as much knowledge as I can.
A bit long for an introduction, but it tells you a bit about who I am, what my quest is, and where on that quest I currently am. If you made it to the end of this rambling, then thank you for listening/reading.
About 3 years ago I decided to start playing around with woodworking and quickly learned that making a simple box is not simple. You need two or three million clamps, a decent set of engineer squares so your tools cut with 90 degree angles and so on.
About 7 years ago I started to get interested in fountain pens, which to this day are my favorite writing instruments. Unfortunately my favorite and most used pen, my Lamy 2000, is currently in need of a bit of nib repair. I really need to quit carrying it in my pocket, as the cap comes off which leads to the nib getting bent as well as stained pants.
Recently I decided I wanted to try my hand at making my own pens. From my woodworking experience I know this is going to take some practice and that the first 50-100 or more pens are not going to be as nice as I would like. Practice and failures are the tools by which we learn the most. With that in mind I didn't want to go out and part together all of the best tools I could afford just to learn with. So I picked up the Penn State Industries 12" Super Pen Making Starter Set. It looks like this gives me almost everything to start making simple basic slim kit pens. I've not set everything up yet because my garage/workshop is not yet heated. However it does look as though the carbide tools in this kit are more suited for detail work and not roughing or shaping. For adding detail to woodworking projects I have some Pfeil gouges which are amazing, but they don't seem to make anything suited for a wood lathe that I was able to find. So a decent roughing carbide tool is one thing I still need to find and buy.
I eventually want to get to the point where I can make custom/kitless wooden pens using Japanese urushi lacquer. That is still pretty far away.
So while it's still cold out and I can't do any work, I'm just reading and watching videos to gather as much knowledge as I can.
A bit long for an introduction, but it tells you a bit about who I am, what my quest is, and where on that quest I currently am. If you made it to the end of this rambling, then thank you for listening/reading.
