emackrell
Member
So here I am deployed to Baghdad for a year...
In between working, I have been volunteering with the Iraqi Scout program here in Baghdad as we try to get a national Scouting program up and running again (it was decertified under Saddam Hussein). Every week a group of US and Iraqi military volunteers meet with a group or 40 or 50 Iraqi kids who want to become Scouts. We teach and lead various activities and crafts and games like any batch of Scouts. It's great fun for the kids and even more fun for us (and hey, it gets us out of work for an afternoon, what's not to like?).
(Here's a link to our group's website if you're interested: http://www.victorybasecouncil.org/)
So where does the penmaking come in, you ask? Well, a lot of very generous people in the States donate Scouting equipment and craft supplies to the Iraqi Scouting program. One very generous recent donation was a large box of simple slimline pen kits designed to be craft projects. That is, they're designed to NOT need power tools to finish them. They come with the blanks cut and drilled, tubes glued and barrels already turned round. The crafter needs to hand-sand the barrels to the right size, then apply a finish and assemble.
When the donated kits arrived, I thought, "Aha! Here is a project I know something about! I may not be able to start a fire using two twigs and a loop of thread, but by gum I know how to make pens!" So I took one of the kits back to my hooch to give it a test run and see how suitable it would be for young kids. Unfortunately, bringing the barrels down to the right size took me over an hour of steady hand sanding, and I'm having a tough time seeing most of the younger kids being able to stick with the project that long.
Hence my question. Without access to a lathe, what might I be able to do to speed up the process of turning the barrels to size before I pass the kits out to the Scouts? There is an engineering battalion here on Victory Base and they're eager to help, but as you can imagine their woodworking equipment tends to be on the large industrial scale -- think bridges, not pens. They might have a belt sander small enough to be useful, but how would you keep the barrels round (and not sand the bushings into oblivion) on a belt sander?
I did find the answer to my second question on the site already -- how to rig a field-expedient pen press. The kits come with a simple device intended to serve as a pen vise -- a long bolt and nut and two small pieces of wood with holes drilled in them. You thread the wood pieces on the bolt, put the pen-in-the-making between them, and tighten the nut down. Theoretically this would push the pen together, but unfortunately the pen is not centered on the bolt -- the axis of the vise -- so it would break if you could actually tighten the nut that far. Turn out that's not a problem because the wooden blocks are soft pine and when you tighten the nut it just screws itself into the pine. Well, at least you won't break the pen that way! But I found a link here to a good article on making your own pen vise from scrap wood, and I plan to enlist the Engineer Battalion in that project. They love an engineering challenge and as you would imagine are incredibly good at fabricating stuff on the fly. If any of you have made significant improvements to the DIY pen vise (the one TN-Steve posted, this was the link: http://www.woodturningonline.com/Turning/Turning_content/pen_assembly_press.html), please let me know. I'll hand it off to the 54th Eng Bn and in a couple of days we should have a pen press that will withstand everything from small kids to a nuclear blast.
Last question is on decoration. The kids are into bright. We will not be applying some bland coat of polish that merely protects the wood. They like colors, the more the merrier. So I am thinking we'll have them decorate their pens with ..... what? Marking pens? Paint pens? Fine-tip Sharpies? What would work the best on wood? All the kits seem to be light maple if that makes a difference.
Thanks in advance for your help. I'll be sure to post photos of the kids with the pens!
Cheers Eileen
In between working, I have been volunteering with the Iraqi Scout program here in Baghdad as we try to get a national Scouting program up and running again (it was decertified under Saddam Hussein). Every week a group of US and Iraqi military volunteers meet with a group or 40 or 50 Iraqi kids who want to become Scouts. We teach and lead various activities and crafts and games like any batch of Scouts. It's great fun for the kids and even more fun for us (and hey, it gets us out of work for an afternoon, what's not to like?).
(Here's a link to our group's website if you're interested: http://www.victorybasecouncil.org/)
So where does the penmaking come in, you ask? Well, a lot of very generous people in the States donate Scouting equipment and craft supplies to the Iraqi Scouting program. One very generous recent donation was a large box of simple slimline pen kits designed to be craft projects. That is, they're designed to NOT need power tools to finish them. They come with the blanks cut and drilled, tubes glued and barrels already turned round. The crafter needs to hand-sand the barrels to the right size, then apply a finish and assemble.
When the donated kits arrived, I thought, "Aha! Here is a project I know something about! I may not be able to start a fire using two twigs and a loop of thread, but by gum I know how to make pens!" So I took one of the kits back to my hooch to give it a test run and see how suitable it would be for young kids. Unfortunately, bringing the barrels down to the right size took me over an hour of steady hand sanding, and I'm having a tough time seeing most of the younger kids being able to stick with the project that long.
Hence my question. Without access to a lathe, what might I be able to do to speed up the process of turning the barrels to size before I pass the kits out to the Scouts? There is an engineering battalion here on Victory Base and they're eager to help, but as you can imagine their woodworking equipment tends to be on the large industrial scale -- think bridges, not pens. They might have a belt sander small enough to be useful, but how would you keep the barrels round (and not sand the bushings into oblivion) on a belt sander?
I did find the answer to my second question on the site already -- how to rig a field-expedient pen press. The kits come with a simple device intended to serve as a pen vise -- a long bolt and nut and two small pieces of wood with holes drilled in them. You thread the wood pieces on the bolt, put the pen-in-the-making between them, and tighten the nut down. Theoretically this would push the pen together, but unfortunately the pen is not centered on the bolt -- the axis of the vise -- so it would break if you could actually tighten the nut that far. Turn out that's not a problem because the wooden blocks are soft pine and when you tighten the nut it just screws itself into the pine. Well, at least you won't break the pen that way! But I found a link here to a good article on making your own pen vise from scrap wood, and I plan to enlist the Engineer Battalion in that project. They love an engineering challenge and as you would imagine are incredibly good at fabricating stuff on the fly. If any of you have made significant improvements to the DIY pen vise (the one TN-Steve posted, this was the link: http://www.woodturningonline.com/Turning/Turning_content/pen_assembly_press.html), please let me know. I'll hand it off to the 54th Eng Bn and in a couple of days we should have a pen press that will withstand everything from small kids to a nuclear blast.
Last question is on decoration. The kids are into bright. We will not be applying some bland coat of polish that merely protects the wood. They like colors, the more the merrier. So I am thinking we'll have them decorate their pens with ..... what? Marking pens? Paint pens? Fine-tip Sharpies? What would work the best on wood? All the kits seem to be light maple if that makes a difference.
Thanks in advance for your help. I'll be sure to post photos of the kids with the pens!
Cheers Eileen
