It was on the way home!

I went to my regional office today, and of course Woodcraft is on the way home from there. :-) So, I stopped in to return the plastic hose fitting that did not work. That was $3.99 credit, so I bought a Pink Ivory pen blank and an interesting green sparkly acrylic blank, which came to $3.98. However, since I did not count the hose fitting as being out of pocket before, I must count the blanks as being extra. Total out-of-pocket is now $55.51, with $75.51 being the total spent.

Another giveaway, and another commission

It is a good thing I saved a picture of the latest acrylic pen for posterity, because we got together with a friend of mine from Chicago today (she was in New Hampshire) and she really liked it, so I gave it to her. I have no problem with doing that if the person is likely to use the pen themselves.

My friend also gave me a commission - her husband (also a good friend of mine) collects fountain pens. I have never turned a fountain pen, but now I have a reason to. Since he reads this blog occasionally (or so I have heard), I will post my attempts at fountain pens here, and he can see if there are any that he might like.

A bit of a bummer regarding the first team-designed pen: The gluing went fine, as did the cutting of the blank, but the drilling resulted in a split of the cocobolo wood at one end. While the resulting cocobolo/ash combo blank is viable, I think I will waste the wood rather than waste a kit seeing if I can make the pen. Back to the drawing board for us. My wife had some other ideas for combination-wood pens, though, so it should not be too long before we try another one.

A visit to the office, two visits to Woodcraft, some success, some failure

Last night I went to Woodcraft and bought the bushings and a kit for a Classic American "click" pen, which is different from the twist pens that I have been making. Unfortunately, I did not realize that the "click" pen requires a different drill bit as well (11 mm), and I had to go back tonight on my way home to get that. I also applied for a Woodcraft Visa card (about time - I should have done that ages ago!) and picked up the kits and bushings for a regular ball-point click pen - not Classic American style.

Last night, after getting home, I made a Bocote Classic American pen that came out pretty well. It is the same wood that I used for my brother's pen and pencil set.

Today, I went to my company's office in Burlington and brought my pens with me (as I always do). I ended up giving away a pen that I thought no one would want - a pen/pencil combo that was made from two woods (Redheart on top and Cocobolo on the bottom). I always kind of liked that one, but I never thought that anyone else would. One of my co-workers really liked it, so I gave it to him. He wanted to pay me, but I stuck to my "free to friends, sold to friends who want to give it as a gift to someone else" policy. He wanted to use it himself, so it was free.

Tonight I tried to make two pens. I used Olivewood to try to make the regular click ballpoint pen, and it did not come out quite right, so I tried to fix it and ended up breaking the mechanism. So, it looks good but does not operate. The look of it is such that I may make more in that style, though, and I can show it to people as a prototype as long as they do not try to write with it:



The second pen was an acrylic that was the most expensive pen (in terms of materials) that I have made so far. The kit was platinum instead of gold (my wife picked out the acrylic and the kit to go together), and went nicely with the black, white, and red of the acrylic. The sanding was not a perfect job. It falls just short of my last attempt with acrylics in terms of the look and feel of it. I could probably sell it, but we'll have to see:



The first "team-designed" pen was glued together tonight as well. My wife designed a pen that is part cocobolo and part ash. We cut the pieces and glued them together, and tomorrow we will (hopefully) cut and drill the resulting blanks, and then glue the tubes. If THAT goes well, we will later make the pen. The first combo experiment! I am excited, but a bit nervous about the process, as it is the first time.

My first commission, and a design partner

Today, at our July 4th gathering, I received my first commission for a particular type of pen. A friend of our family, seeing the different types of pens that I can create, requested a click-pen made out of cocobolo. I have not yet done any pens made from kits for click pens (as opposed to the slimline and CA pens, which twist to open and close), so I will have to look when I next go to Woodcraft to see what kits they may have. My wife may pick out the acrylic blank for her requested pen, as well. I will also be on the lookout for the blue wood or acrylic, as stated earlier. I am still feeling patriotic, and I still think that a red, white, and blue segmented pen could be fun.

On the way back home tonight, my wife commented that it might be fun to design some pens together, which I think is a very cool idea. I have many different types of pens to attempt, and I think it would be great to have her come up with some design ideas for combination (more than one type of wood/acrylic/colour) pens of various styles. That way, the finished product could be the result of teamwork.

With the latest success with acrylic, and the way it was received, I may attempt to do more with them. We will have to see.

Acrylics, Part Deux

So, in need of additional inventory (read: I needed to make at least one more pen, as a gift for a friend on the 4th of July), I decided to finally attack the acrylic pen blank that I long ago cut and drilled. I looked up some tips on how to deal with acrylics, and people seemed to think that wet sanding the acrylics and using light pressure when sanding would make a lot of difference. For one thing, the wet sanding and the lack of pressure would keep heat from building up, and heat is the #1 thing to look out for when working with acrylics, since the plastic can bubble up and rip. This is what happened with my first try with acrylics.

I turned the pen differently this time around. I used much more of the roughing gouge, and a lot less of the skew chisel. With wood, the skew chisel can save a lot of time and effort. With acrylics, the skew chisel creates spinning loops of plastic that then have to be removed from the lathe.

Then came the sanding: I had never done any wet sanding before. I looked up how to do it, and the instructions seemed fairly simple: Fill a small bowl with water, and put a couple of drops of dish detergent in it. Then dip the sandpaper in the water before using it on the acrylic. I wet-sanded for the 150 grit and the 320 grit, and the results seemed to be a lot better than my first try. What was coming off on the sandpaper was a kind of mud (a slurry would be the technical term, I suppose), and the heat was not building up. The wet sanding took a lot longer due to the lighter pressure, but it seemed to be worth it. I even wet-sanded for the first piece of MicroMesh (1500 grit), but after that I figured light dry-sanding would work just as well.

And it did! I finished with the MicroMesh and polish, and put together the pen:



I am using the picture with the flash, since it shows better the shiny aspects of the pen. I think this will be a cool addition to my inventory, if only for a couple of days. Of course, once my wife saw this one, she said that she wanted a red one. So, I guess my days of working with acrylics are not over.

This one seemed less of a pain to do, but I still think I enjoy working with the wood more.