First pens

Ned Bulken

Member
Messages
5,529
Location
Lakeport NY and/or the nearest hotel
Well,
Don Orr was gracious enough to show me all of the fiddly little details of pen turning... how to drill out the blank, glue in the tubes etc... and as a result I have two nice pens to show for it:
firstpen.jpg

Mahagony with 'gold' slimline kit from woodcraft.

mahagonypen.jpg

This one turned out quite nicely, so I'm donating it for a benefit auction this weekend.

And my third pen (2nd one is still in progress)
spaltedtearout.jpg

spalted maple
spaltedpen.jpg

had a little bit of tear-out along one of the bug-trails, which I still need to fix, this one is staying with me u ntil I fix it, then I might give it away as a gift.

all in all, very fun, if a bit 'fussy' but easy to do and I look forward to doing more in the near future.
 
Ditto what frank said.

Soon, you will have a box full of kits, extra tubes, your fingers will be covered in cyanoacrylate glue.

You'll be constantly looking for ways of creating new and interesting blanks, perhaps even venturing into casting your own acrylic blanks or stabilizing punky wood with resin, vacuum pumps, and pressure tanks!

:eek:

Watch out!
 
Fixing bug holes

Ned,
The best tip I ever heard for fixing bug holes was to use charcoal and coffee grinds. Charcoal from a charcoal pen. Use sandpaper to make fine dust and then dump it in the holes. Spray with accelerant and then just touch it with thin CA glue.

Use the coffee to fill big voids and fill in the gaps with charcoal. I used this technique on some mesquite to make the voids look like they were filled with bark. This also works well on ambrosia maple because it doesn't hide the beetle holes as much as show them off.
 
Good start, Ned. They both look like they came out nicely. :thumb:

I second/third/whatever the suggestion to try charcoal and CA. I use it fairly often. I just grind some charcoal up with a mortar and pestle and do about as Dom suggested. You can also do the same with instant coffee crystals if you want more of a brown color. (I use decaf, since I believe all turnings should be caffeine-free. Turners, on the other hand, need all the caffeine they can get.) :D
 
Nice Pens

It was truly my pleasure to have you visit my shop again. Always happy to help someone deeper into the abyss. Ned, you did a very good job prepping the blanks and turning them into pens. I hope you learned a lot and had a good time. Best of luck with the benefit. Hope my box does OK.
 
Yep between your first bowl and now your pens, you're definitely hooked. They both came out very nice looking. Before you know it very time you see a small piece of wood you'll think, :huh: gee will this make a nice pen...:rofl:
 
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