Catching up on the week

I was in Toronto last Tuesday and Wednesday, and not feeling well on Thursday, so I did not really get to do anything related to pen turning until the weekend.

Friday I sharpened the barrel trimmer on the diamond stone, and that worked pretty well. No more tearout (so far) from the barrel trimming.

Saturday, I went to a demo on dust collection at the Woodcraft store. Most of the discussion revolved around how to do dust collection efficiently in woodshops that are considerably larger than mine, but it was interesting nonetheless. I DID learn that what I am doing in my shop (wearing a respirator, using the shopvac to clean up) is basically what I should be doing, based on the machines I am using and the layout of the shop. That was a relief - I want to stay safe (no wood dust in the lungs and such), but I did not want to shell out for a dust collection system at this point.

After the demo, I hung around the store for a bit, and bought some reddish Cocobolo wood. I found out that you can get smaller pieces of the various wood types, instead of having to buy the entire piece that the store has along the wall. As long as you leave them at least 4 feet of wood, you can take a smaller piece. This is great - it will enable me to try different woods for my pens without making major purchases.

On the way out, I got into a discussion (not the first time) about purpleheart with the people on the staff. They seem to think that once purpleheart turns brown, it cannot turn back to purple. This is contrary to my own experience, so basically I am convinced that no one knows what to do to make sure that the finished product comes out purple.

I worked on a few different pens yesterday and today:
1. A cocobolo Classic American click pen - I cut and drilled and glued this one yesterday, and made it this morning. It looks like the other Classic American style pens, but drilling and turning it is a lot different because the tubes for the two halves of the blanks are actually different sizes. Instead of twisting, the pen clicks. It came out pretty well, and my wife says that she may prefer this style to the Classic American twist pen.
2. A padauk Classic American fountain pen - I cut and drilled and glued this one yesterday, and trimmed the barrel today. I will probably make the pen tomorrow night when my wife is at her choral group practice. This was made from a blank that my wife said looks almost like a sunset (padauk is basically orange).
3. An olivewood click pencil - the counterpart to the olivewood click pen that I made (the one that looked fine but was inoperable because I messed with it). This one had already been drilled and glued. I just trimmed the barrel, and I may work on making that one tomorrow night too.
4. A cocobolo click pen - This one I cut and drilled, but I am not going to glue it yet. I was advised by my guru at Woodcraft to drill cocbolo twice if the tube is a tight fit the first time. Let the wood dry out and shrink, and then drill it again. So, I will drill it again tomorrow night, and then glue it to work on later.

My brother told me that his co-workers really like the pens, and that they may want some for themselves. Not holding my breath, but that would be pretty cool. I gave him the two online sites that I use for kits, and figure that they can pick one out if they want, as long as they understand that the price goes up a bit if it is not a kit that I have already or can get in bulk.