At long last, a pepper mill!

Well, it finally happened. I took my class at the Homestead Woodworking School in Newmarket, and I learned a lot that can be applied to the making of more than just pepper mills. I worked on a full lathe, too - not the mini lathe that I have at home - and that led me to think that someday I may want one. Not yet, though - there is nothing that I would be working on for a while that would require something that large.

I also learned that my knowledge of my own woodturning tools has been a bit deficient. Even after two years, I apparently had been using a bowl gouge as a spindle gouge, and had never really used the spindle gouge at all. I never even realized I HAD a bowl gouge! I felt really ignorant when I found this out, but at least I know.

During the all day course, I also learned how to make a "jam chuck", turning a piece of scrap wood so that one end of it can be held by a chuck in the headstock while the piece (in this case, the main part of the pepper mill, with the holes already drilled) could be "jammed" onto the other end. In essence, it allows a piece that would not fit onto the regular chuck to be turned on the lathe with support.

The skills learned in the class can, I think, be easily applied to turning boxes and ornaments and such. I used the spindle gouge (now that I know what it is - I still cannot believe my ignorance on that one) to do most of the shaping of the mill. I also learned a bit about how to sharpen my roughing gouge (some of which I knew, but sharpening tips are always good) and my parting tool (which I had never really sharpened on the grinder - I have been using a diamond stone). My bowl gouge will need to be re-sharpened professionally before I use it on any bowls.

I have not sold any more pens through consignment, which is no real surprise given the economy, but I did sell a couple to my mom, who gave them to friends as presents, and they were well received. Supposedly, I will be getting other commissions for pens this holiday season, but I have not gotten them yet, and time is getting short.

So...the pepper mill. I really enjoyed making it. My wife tells me that it has the look of a chess pawn, which was not at all intentional. I was trying to emulate a photograph that they had in the classroom of a particular style, but I deviated from that style and made it my own. If I had somehow been working vertically instead of horizontally on the pepper mill, I could see how I would have intentionally made it into a chess piece, but I had no idea of the resemblance until I brought it home.



I have been told that I should put a layer of beeswax on it, but I am not sure exactly how to do that. I may do it, and I may not.

Deficit spending

As I deposited the check from my latest sale yesterday, I was in a dangerous mood going into Woodcraft tonight. I knew that I did not need any wood (did not keep me from looking, though), and I thought I would buy some more opener and magnifier kits. The irony of the evening was evident in the fact that I did not want to pay more for the kits (they seem to have gone up about $2 each!), and so I ended up in a conversation with one of the many friendly salesfolk about buying a chuck for the lathe. The chuck would be my first step away from just doing spindle/mandrel work (like pens, ornaments, and such) towards things like pepper mills and (eventually) bowls. The pepper mill was my stated reason for wanting the chuck, as my wife has been wanting a pepper mill and I said a while back that I would make one for her. I think, though, once I start working with the chuck, I may find all kinds of projects for it.

The salesman (he is more of a woodturner that happens to work at the store - calling him a salesman does not do him justice, though he is quite good at selling) helped me to put together the chuck, too, which means that I would not be sitting at home thinking that I was putting it together incorrectly to start with. Why is this relevant?

Well, one of the reasons I went to Woodcraft tonight was to exchange my adjustable mandrel. It got stuck easily, and I could not get it to adjust at all. It turns out that they ship the adjustable mandrel with a small (but important!) part placed on the mandrel BACKWARDS. There is no documentation accompanying the mandrel, so unless you KNOW that it is backwards, you adjust and tighten the mandrel in such a way that it never becomes unstuck. Yet another time when I was thinking that I must have been doing some beginner idiot thing, when all along it was an easy mistake to make. Luckily, I was able to exchange it out for a new one, and Chris (the salesman) showed me how to put it together correctly.

Why they put it together backwards in the box, without any docs, just baffles me.

Chris also showed me how to keep from having pieces of wood fly off when using the parting tool (which is what happened with the dyed orange pen I tried to make recently). He suggested using the point of the skew to dig into the point where the parting would take place, as a guide for the parting tool and to keep the parting from tearing along the grain when you do not want it to. I also found out tonight that I have been sharpening my parting tool a bit incorrectly, but it can be corrected with diligence.

Started three pens and a magnifier and a letter opener last night. Tigre Caspi for one of the pens, and the magnifier and opener. Pink ivory on chrome for one pen, and a reddish cocobolo on chrome for the last one.

Shakey Le Tree on display

This morning, I visited Nuance, the store where Shakey Le Tree pens are now on sale. The display looks great - the pens are nicely laid out behind a glass case:



Close-up of the card at the top of the display:



Close-up of one of the pens on display:



I was really happy with the display...if they do not sell, it will not be because of a lack of effort.

I made another nice one tonight - a Cocobolo Classic American pen. I think I will be working with Cocobolo for a while...I have some great pieces that are only really good for pens (and maybe jewelry, if I can figure out how to make it), and it would be a shame not to use them. Cocobolo also always comes out unique.

I also made a mistake on a pen tonight...I was making an Olivewood Broker pen, and I got some tearout and had to start over. I lost the wood, but kept the tube, so I should be able to make another Broker pen with another piece of Olivewood.

I got back my sharpened roughing gouge on Sunday, and used it tonight for the first time. What a difference! I learned a bit about sharpening, too. The angle of the sharpening wheel changes as the tool gets sharpened multiple times, as the sharpener actually shortens the tool. So, even though I had set up the right angle for the sharpening wheel when I first set it up, I needed to change it occasionally, and I had not done that. Also, I was told that I needed to sharpen longer on the sides of the tool than I had been. I will see if I can do that successfully.

Sharp tools make all the difference

Tonight, before turning the cocobolo ballpoint twist pen (which came out very well), I sharpened the roughing gouge on the wheel and then sharpened my skew chisel on the diamond stone for the first time. What a difference! Using the skew chisel on the cocobolo was amazing. It cut so easily and so smoothly...I think it is more than ever my favourite tool.

Here is the pen I made tonight:



Another first-time experience: I had heard that when you drill out a pen blank, you should put a block of wood under the blank so that the blank does not split as the drill bit comes out the bottom. I had never run into this issue, so I did not think much of it...until tonight. I was drilling out the bloodwood blank that I had cut earlier in the evening, and the blank split because I drilled it too fast and there was no piece of wood under the blank.

Of course, now that I have a band saw, it was a matter of about 5 minutes before I had another bloodwood blank to drill. This one I drilled much more slowly, and it worked a lot better. I still (full disclosure) did not put a piece of wood under the blank, but I think that the slow drilling helped a lot. If there is a need to drill quickly, I should put the block of wood under the blank, I guess.

I decided to try the bullet tip pen again. I have tried two of them, and they both came out well in their own way. Hopefully the third one will come out VERY well. I will be using cocobolo for it.

Two more pen kits, please...

So today I went to Woodcraft (big surprise there) and got the bushings and a kit for the Classic American Fountain Pen. I also got another kit for the regular click pen, so I can try it out with cocobolo or bloodwood.

I also asked how to sharpen the pen mill (barrel trimmer). It seems that I can do that on the diamond stone sharpener that I bought for the skew chisel, so I am going to give that a try.

Sharpening changes, and a trip to the office

Today I went in to my office in Burlington, MA. One of the (many) things I did while I was there was to show my new pens to the co-workers who visited the office where I was sitting. I also gave my old boss the pen that I made for him (as thanks for the tip he gave me about the plumbing issue I was having), and gave my office-mate the cocobolo slimline pencil that I made.

On the way home from work, I stopped in at Woodcraft (big surprise there). I brought the skew jig that I had recently bought from there, and the skew chisel that I tried to sharpen it with (with VERY limited success). I intended to ask one of the people there to show me how to correctly use the skew jig with the sharpening system so that I could correctly sharpen the skew chisel at home. The person I asked to do this was Chris, the 18-year-old who taught the bowl-turning class that my wife and I took last month. He sharpened the chisel for me, taking a lot of his time to do it (for which I was very grateful), but instead of my trying to sharpen it myself using the skew jig, I traded in the skew jig for a diamond stone. A diamond stone allows for hand sharpening of the skew chisel, and also allows for more of a margin of error. Chris showed me how to use it, and also told me that he and his father ALWAYS use the diamond stone to sharpen the skew chisels because of the difficulty of doing it on the sharpening system.

I also got to show the folks at Woodcraft the PenPal 1000, a creation of my wife's that allows me to carry my pens (and magnifiers and such) around with me in style:



When closed, it looks like this:

When wrapped up as a carrying case, it is very easy to bring around with me:


It's an excellent present, and I am very grateful for it. Now that I have a sharp skew chisel, I can start making new things for it. I think the next thing will be the bloodwood pen to match the letter opener, but I have some ideas for projects after that one.

The tears that come from tearout...and some sharpening tips

Though I had heard quite a bit about the dangers of tearout when using a skew chisel (tearout happens when you do not get a clean cut when turning, and a chunk of the wood comes out instead of shavings), I had not personally experienced it in a way that was detrimental to my craft...until today. I made a Bullet Tip Pen (which, aside from the tearout, actually came out quite well) and a Classic American Pencil (ditto) out of bloodwood. In both cases, the item was nice and smooth and had a great finish...except for small tears in the wood that were too deep to sand out. So, I have a pen and pencil that I can use, but cannot really give away or sell.

My next step is to sharpen my tools again. In order to do this, I need to set up the other side of the jig that is on my sharpening system. The sharpening system has two wheels - one rough, one fine. The rough one is for setting the edge on a tool, but it removes a lot of steel if you use it all the time for sharpening (which I have, up to now). The fine one is to keep tools sharp. I need to set up the jig on the fine side, so that I can sharpen the skew chisel and the roughing gouge, and avoid tearout in the future.

I also need to buy another Classic American kit (or 10), as I promised my wife that I would make her friend a letter opener (already made) with a matching CA style pen or pencil. The pencil today would have been perfect...except for the tearout. I will try to get a good picture of the tearout, but it may be tough to get on camera. Unfortunately, that does not mean that the tearout cannot be noticed with the naked eye.

Luckily, I have a lot more bloodwood to work with, once my tools are sharp again.