Modified olive wood pen

[MedWoodWorx]

I just finished this rollerball made from a nice piece of highly figured olive wood. I used an omega pen kit from taylors mirfield which i modified to make a chubby looking, one piece pen. I didn't manage to achieve grain continuation all over the pen and this was most likely due to misaligned drilling of the blanks. I use a bench drill that is not that consistent as drilling on the lathe; the same axis of drilling is difficult to be achieved. I filed down the metal center ring of the kit and tried to achieve a seamless look. I finished the pen with oil which i used to wet sand the pen to 1000 grit.

 

[Alan Morrison]

The grain looks pretty good to me.

 

[mark james]

I agree with Alan, the grain looks as good as possible with the need for a thin cut. But... consider a metal/veneer/plastic/etc spacer to break up the visual match of the grains. This pen also has a slight mismatch due to the cut, but IMO the metal spacer breaks up the visual. Just a thought for you to consider. Very nice finished pen.

 

[TDahl]

Very nice. I too think they grain lines up quite nicely.

 

[MedWoodWorx]

Thank you all for your kind words but it seems that i uploaded all the beauty shots of my pen. Here are some that show the problem. Another thing i noticed but i cannot photograph properly is the lack of concentricity; although i turned between centers ( which i presume is a bit more accurate than using a mandrel) the pen has not a round body; i can tell that when unscrewing the cap from the body. I tested my dead center and live center alignment and its spot on. I suppose wood lathes are limited in terms of accuracy and maybe a metal lathe is needed for such a task.
Cheers.

 

[MedWoodWorx]

I agree with Alan, the grain looks as good as possible with the need for a thin cut. But... consider a metal/veneer/plastic/etc spacer to break up the visual match of the grains. This pen also has a slight mismatch due to the cut, but IMO the metal spacer breaks up the visual. Just a thought for you to consider. Very nice finished pen.

View attachment 342304

This spacer idea is really good after all; do you attach it to the blank of you simply let it "float" between pieces? Thank you.

 

[mark james]

This spacer idea is really good after all; do you attach it to the blank of you simply let it "float" between pieces? Thank you.

I epoxied to the lower section.