Greetings,
I found this site while searching for the history of pen turning. I am a retired electrician with machinist skills. I turned my first pen in 1966 while working as a tool and die apprentice for a small manufacturing shop east of Kansas City. The shop owner was well acquainted with a person in the product development division of Hallmark Cards. Hallmark had brought a rough prototype of a pen that had been covered with a thin walnut veneer. Hallmark wanted ideas to make the pen a better way and actual prototypes to sell the Hallmark Executives on a line of fine writing instruments.
The machinist that I was working with was taking several different hardwoods and actually turning the inside of the blanks with a small cutting tool and not having consistiently good results. I sugested the we take a drill bit the diameter of the pen barrel and grind it to the barrel's contour, drill the wood blank and epoxy the barrel inside of it, and then turn the pen. (I was 16 years old and did not know that I had came up with a million dollar idea that I did not get a cent for.) The prototype pens looked great and this began the Hallmark line of writing instruments. I do not have an original prototype, but I have some of the first wood turned pens and gold pens ever mass produced by Hallmark.
A year or so later, after the pens were approved for production, Hallmark wanted wooden boxes to sell the pens in. Again, I came up with the idea of how to produce the boxes from walnut. I actually helped build the two production machines that produced (in 11 seconds) the 2 sizes of box bottoms and 2 sizes of box tops. I wired the hydraulically powered machines using relay logic, with limit and pressure switches. (there were no practical computer controllers or PLCs available off the shelf in 1968) I still have a few of the first pen boxes ever made. I could describe the how the machines were made and the entire process from raw lumber to finished if some are interested at a later writing. (I could include some pics also)
I hope to enjoy the site and maybe learn new things and share some knowledge with others.
I found this site while searching for the history of pen turning. I am a retired electrician with machinist skills. I turned my first pen in 1966 while working as a tool and die apprentice for a small manufacturing shop east of Kansas City. The shop owner was well acquainted with a person in the product development division of Hallmark Cards. Hallmark had brought a rough prototype of a pen that had been covered with a thin walnut veneer. Hallmark wanted ideas to make the pen a better way and actual prototypes to sell the Hallmark Executives on a line of fine writing instruments.
The machinist that I was working with was taking several different hardwoods and actually turning the inside of the blanks with a small cutting tool and not having consistiently good results. I sugested the we take a drill bit the diameter of the pen barrel and grind it to the barrel's contour, drill the wood blank and epoxy the barrel inside of it, and then turn the pen. (I was 16 years old and did not know that I had came up with a million dollar idea that I did not get a cent for.) The prototype pens looked great and this began the Hallmark line of writing instruments. I do not have an original prototype, but I have some of the first wood turned pens and gold pens ever mass produced by Hallmark.
A year or so later, after the pens were approved for production, Hallmark wanted wooden boxes to sell the pens in. Again, I came up with the idea of how to produce the boxes from walnut. I actually helped build the two production machines that produced (in 11 seconds) the 2 sizes of box bottoms and 2 sizes of box tops. I wired the hydraulically powered machines using relay logic, with limit and pressure switches. (there were no practical computer controllers or PLCs available off the shelf in 1968) I still have a few of the first pen boxes ever made. I could describe the how the machines were made and the entire process from raw lumber to finished if some are interested at a later writing. (I could include some pics also)
I hope to enjoy the site and maybe learn new things and share some knowledge with others.
