Hello from Salem OHIO

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Drudgery1971

Member
Joined
Dec 29, 2013
Messages
11
Location
NE Ohio
Hi Folks. Great forum. Looking forward to learning about making pens and contributing once I know which end of the pen writes. I've been into woodworking for 30 years and have had a Delta Midi lathe with extension for 10 years but just not getting around to pens. My 1st 2 attempts didn't go so well so they ended up in the fireplace but #3,4 and 5 are pictured below. Not quite a matched set but was good proactice and came out okay. It's gaboon ebony with Sierra metal guts and tung oil finish. Any improvements or words of wisdom are always appreciated.

I have a CA finishing kit but the I really need to practice some more and why I used fool proof tung oil on these. Have a great new year and thanks for this forum. -- Andy
 

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Thanks Chris - I am not sure about the pen making thing yet. I guess I always wondered why would I want to make something as simple as a tube? That was naive I now know after reading a couple of books and seeing some of the amazing pens/pencils on this site. I started making tops see "Other stuff we make" section and kind of ran out of steam doing that and slowly switched to pens. When woodworking in general I tend to be less engineer (because that what I do as a profession) and more craftsmen - no rules/specs, etc as that is more enjoyable. More rough, unique, one off pieces. So for example duplicating the same pen is not that appealing to me. I guess that's more than you probably wanted to know. :) LOL.
 
Welcome Andy, from Sydney Australia,
3 keepers out of 5 isn't all that bad,
in particular as apart from the Tube, you can reserect and rebirth the lost 2,
provided you didn't throw them too hard and damage the kit parts or have the fire on.
Was the difficulty with the Finishing, Assembly, or Turning?
There are excellent tutorials on all facets of pen making on this site.
You will find Pen Making very Addictive.
Regards,
Brian.
 
OZturner said:
Welcome Andy, from Sydney Australia,
3 keepers out of 5 isn't all that bad,
in particular as apart from the Tube, you can reserect and rebirth the lost 2,
provided you didn't throw them too hard and damage the kit parts or have the fire on.
Was the difficulty with the Finishing, Assembly, or Turning?
There are excellent tutorials on all facets of pen making on this site.
You will find Pen Making very Addictive.
Regards,
Brian.
Click to expand...

Thanks Brian - The 1st and 2nd attempts were looking good - rosewood and African blackwood for an Elegant Sierra but finishing them with CA looked horrible. I tried to 'work" the medium CA and just marked it up and then got impatient. I could have just sanded it all back down. I was using clean tee-shirt cut into small squares to apply. I need to research some more and practice. In general though I prefer a less candy coated finish like oil or wax but need to master CA because it is quite beautiful and some people prefer it for gifts and when using a gloss plastic pen kit it would look better I think. It's fun to learn and it's a relatively inexpensive hobby it seems. I need to learn about decals are find a laser engraver outsource. I can't how much knowledge and dat there is here. Awesome stuff. Best Regards -- Andy
 
Welcome from Southern California! I've had pretty good results with CA finishes using plain old white paper towels and thin CA.
 
Welcome from Akron.
We have a great local group of guys here in NEO.
Keep an eye out for our next meeting details, should be sometime in Feb at the Hartville Hardware.
 
MagicBob - Thanks - Will do on the meeting at Hartville Hardware. I get quite a bit of my blanks/tooling from them and are always great people - even during Christmas rush.
 
Welcome to the forum, from Cambridge, Ontario. My own personal opinion, and by no means meant to offend; I find the sides a little too straight. I think with the curve of the finial and the curve of the nib of this pen kit, the body of the pen should have an arc to sort of marry the two! I use the c.a. finish, and I really like it. Once you get the hang of it, (and trust me, I was pretty frustrated with it when I first tried it!) it will really add a new dimension to a pen. But, keep your fist pen, it's a great way to look back and see how far you've come!! Keep up the good work!! :)
 
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