Projects in the queue
- 8-ball tournaments
- Custom Pool Cue
My goodness, I seem to be making a lot of financial-related pen types! I made my first two Wall Street pens a couple of days ago, one of cocobolo and one of pink ivory. I think they came out pretty well, even though they seem small to me. I do have large hands, though, and others have said that they like them:
The strange thing about these type of pens is that they are mostly the kit. For most of the other pens I have made, the wood (or acrylic) takes up the large majority of the length of the pen. With the Wall Street pens, the kit takes up about half of the length, which makes for a much different look.
I also made a cocobolo broker pen, which came out okay, and a maple burl (undyed, this time) Classic American pen. I was also making a Bocote twist pen, but the wood split on me, so I will make a chrome twist pen with bloodwood instead.
Here is the maple burl pen:
Last Tuesday night I went back to Woodcraft for the monthly meeting of the Seacoast Woodturners' Club. I went for the first time last November, but I missed the December meeting due to my trip out to LA. This time there were ten members there, and we discussed various tips and such for turning. I thought I could share some of my issues with drilling burl blanks and not being able to glue the tubes in, but it seems that no one else had ever run into that. All of their suggestions were things that I tried, which surprised me a bit. My use of the file to enlarge the holes did not seem to be something that anyone else had ever tried to do.
We made a bowl in the meeting, which was cool. Aside from one class, I have had no experience with that, so it was neat to take part. The next meeting might cover sharpening tools or making something else. I would like to do a winestopper, but I am not sure how interested the rest of the group would be.
I got my discount card, too...I think that it entitles me to a 10% discount on the nights of the meetings, but I will have to clarify that.
It is a cool group - mostly folks older (and a lot more experienced) than I, which is okay from my perspective. It means that, even though occasionally I get exposed as a newbie, I learn a lot.
Well, I finally got the wood shop set up the way I want it, I think. We put together the new lathe stand, and arranged the shop so that the machines are standing in roughly the order in which they are used. I have my kits and blanks on a table, and on the other side of the shop I have the band saw and the drill press and the lathe, in that order. I do the gluing on the table that has the blanks on it, and I press the pens together on that table as well.
With the help of my wife, I found a nifty way to keep track of all of my pen kits. Originally, I was going to use empty soup cans to hold the kits and bushings and such, but she found a shoe bag that works perfectly. It has 24 pockets (normally for holding 12 pairs of shoes), which gives me a chance to put 24 different types of kits in there. I don't have that many, but perhaps someday I will.
Now that I can see all of the blanks that I have, and can keep track of my kits, I am starting to make some nifty pens. I decided to start using some of the cool blanks that I bought last year, now that I have some confidence that the pens will come out well. I started the new year by working with two blanks of dyed burl that I bought in Canada.
I have never worked with burl before, and until now, I had no idea that it was that different from working with other types of wood. However, I quickly found that burl has a few quirks - some of which are good. It drills VERY straight - a hole drilled from the center of one side of the blank has a good chance of coming out in the center of the other side. However, it does this because it is extremely hard wood. So, when it is being drilled, the heat builds up very quickly. I had to spray the drill bit quite a few times to cool it down.
The dyed burls apparently (note - I have now worked with two of them, which I know is a very small sample size, but I can only go from my own experience) are difficult to get the tubes into even though the holes are straight. There seem to be catches on the inside of the blank (not sure how the dye plays into that, but the undyed burl that I worked with tonight did not have this problem), and I actually had to file down the inside of the blank and enlarge the holes a bit to get the tubes to glue into them.
I decided to do two Classic American style pens with the dyed burl (the dye in this case is a blue-green, which contrasts interestingly with the natural brown of the burl) - one with a gold kit (from Woodcraft) and one with a chrome kit (from Lee Valley, in Ottawa). Interestingly, though the kits look pretty much the same, there are some differences in the assembly and turning instructions. For instance, with the Lee Valley kits, you part off 3/16" instead of 1/8". I actually parted off 3/16" for both pens, and there is no real problem, but the gold pen does look slightly different from the other Woodcraft CA pens that I have made.
When turning the chrome pen, I got some tearout in the bottom barrel - I could see the brass tube through a hole in the wood. In the past, I would have parted off the rest of the wood and called it a lost cause - maybe using the top barrel as part of a hybrid pen later. However, I decided to see if I could fix it. I put a mixture of medium CA glue and the shavings from the burl (which were all over the lathe) into the hole, and let the glue set. Then, I sanded it down to the level of the rest of the barrel. For some wood, this would not work because you would be able to see where the grain was messed up, but because of the varied nature of the burl, this technique worked like a charm. The pen was saved, and there is no way to tell where the patch was placed unless you know to look for it - and even then it is tough.
Here is the chrome pen - the gold pen looks very similar, but of course the fittings and trim are gold where this one is silver:
This has GOT to be one of the coolest-looking pens I have made out of wood. One interesting thing about working with the dyed burl that was NOT so great: When I was turning it, it was almost like working with acrylic. Instead of smelling wood, like when I work with cocobolo or bloodwood, I was smelling the dye. It was not quite as bad as acrylic, but it reminded me that if I am going to work with acrylics again (and I do have quite a few neat acrylic blanks), I should probably wait until the weather gets warmer and I can work with the garage door open.
Tonight I cut and glued the start of six pens - Classic American Maple Burl (undyed), Slimline Maple Burl (undyed), Classic American Bocote (Chrome kit), Pink Ivory Wall Street II (A style that uses one short piece of wood, which is good for a lot of the pieces I have left over from other pens. I have not made any of these before), Cocobolo Wall Street II, Cocobolo Broker Pen. Lots of different bushings and drill bits involved with these. On one of them, I messed up the gluing, and had to cut the tube in half and put the cut half into the other side of the blank. It should still work okay.
I do eventually want to start in on winestoppers and the egg kaleidascope, but I am really enjoying seeing how the more interesting blanks come out when they are turned.
Wow! I did not realize that it had been so long since I posted here. December was a very active month, though not so active regarding my turning after the first couple of weeks.
I finished the pens that I made for co-workers, and they came out pretty well! I think that I am finally gaining SOME expertise in this area:
It is kind of hard to tell from these photos, but the finish on all of these was really nice, and the cocobolo ones especially had some really nice grain!
I actually kept my Woodcraft trips down, but that was mainly because I was out of town for the second half of the month. I think December was actually a PLUS month for the finances, which is a nice way to end the year. I had income from the pens that I sold. More on that at the end of the post.
While out in LA during the third week of December, I had occasion to see my uncle for the first time in over 2 years. I showed him some of my pens (my stock was somewhat depleted) and he was pretty impressed. I had actually planned to make him a pen before heading out, but weather issues (a snowstorm changed my flight plans) made it so that I did not have the time. I sent him some links, though, and I will make him a pen soon.
I also have to send out my first fountain pen to a friend in Chicago. Just because I have not sent it yet does not mean that it will go to anyone else. :-)
As I mentioned in an earlier post, the fact that I have this hobby seems to make me easier to shop for during the holiday season. I received some very nice gifts, including: a book on pen turning, some pen blanks of nice burl, a piece of tulipwood that can be used for wine stoppers or eggs (more on the egg thing in a moment), and some small turning tools.
I also received a gift card for Woodcraft, which I am going to use to buy a stand for my lathe. By doing this, I will open up bench space that I can use to lay out my kits and my wood. This will let me better organize my projects. I will also rearrange the placement of the benches and tools and storage within the garage/woodshop. The lathe stand is supposed to be in stock next week sometime, so I am taking a bit of a break from turning until I get the stand. I do not want to be in the middle of a project when I start to move everything around.
Now, what is all of this talk about eggs? Well, one of the books I got for the holidays describes how to turn ornaments and eggs. Wooden eggs actually look pretty cool. Also, you can make kaleidescopes that are egg shaped. I bought myself one of the kits to do just that.
You can turn the eggs on the mandrel that is used for the pens and pencils.
My goals for 2008 include turning pens that I can sell at a shop or something, and also turning a successful winestopper and a successful egg. If I can do an ornament, so much the better. :-)
To tally up as best I can for 2007, in terms of cost:
Previously: Out of pocket $242.47, Total: $341.56
Expenses: 43.67 on kits, 2.50 on wood
Income (!): $135 for the five pens I made for co-workers
End 2007:
Out of pocket $153.64, Total: $252.73
I also bought myself $60 in gift certificates for $50, but when I use them I will just count it all as out of pocket. There were some kits and blanks I got at Lee Valley in Ottawa, but as those are being paid for out of a different account, I am leaving that alone.
So far in 2008: Out of pocket: $14.59, Total: $14.59
