A Few Pens

Glen Franchuk

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My back finally let me get down and turn a few pens. It's a corker when one's body refuses to co-operate and you have to take painkillers to try and move. My philosophy is never to mix painkillers and power tools. This has allowed me to still have all my fingers operational.

From left to right, no. 1 is a curly maple Sierra for "Pens for Peacekeepers", no. 2 is a curly maple Mesa that for now is a keeper for me, no. 3 is a Mesa stabilized burl for "Pens for Peacekeepers", no. 4 is a curly maple Sierra which too is a keeper for now, no. 5 is a cocobolo Sierra as a retirement present for the Wife's Doctor and no. 6 is a yellow ribbon Sierra Elegant Beauty as a thank you for serving for my Cousin's son who just returned home from Afghanistan. His younger brother also returned home from Afghanistan 3 weeks early and the entire family is happy to have both of them home without any physical injuries. The mental part we will have to wait and see. The older one was an Engineer with the tank division at Khandahar air base while his brother was a medic at a forward operating base out of Khandahar. I will probably be turning another yellow ribbon for the younger fellow for his service. They have a choice of what woods they prefer to have.

The pens are all finished by sanding to 400, then sanding sealer, then at least 8 coats of BLO/CA, wet sanded to 12,000, polished with a Hut polish and then a final waxing with Turtle was ICE. The cocobolo was a problem as some of the BLO/CA didn't want to adhere to the wood. I wiped the wood down with acetone and may not have give the acetone enought time to evaporate before starting the CA finish. A resanding, rewiping, waiting a little longer and then proceeding the the BLO/CA finish worked great. Live and learn. All the pens were turned using only a round and square carbide cutters and sanding equipment. Carbide inserts work great when used as a cutter instead of only being used as a scraper.
 

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Very nice work, Glen. :thumb: I've not been keeping up with pen kit styles. Who sells the Mesa kit? The yellow ribbon pen is a great idea. How are you doing the inlay?

And also please forward a tip 'o the hat and a big Thank You to your cousin's sons, too.

And oh yeah...welcome to the forum. :wave:
 
Welcome to FWW Glen. Really a nice group of pens. Are they all Sierra's? Sure do look like it. I love turning them and they are my best sellers especially the Wall Street II click pens which are Sierra's by a different name.
 
Woodturningz sell the Mesa, it's a Sierra by a different name with a different style of band on it. The tubes are the same size. The yellow ribbon inlays are done by someone else and you just pruchase the premade wood tube with the inlay already in it. You glue that part onto a Sierra/Mesa tube and turn away - carefully. Its recommended that one uses epoxy to glue the brass tube to the inlay tube. One of the tubes I got was a piece of junk (the yellow inlay appeared brown instead of yellow) and when I contacted Ryan at Woodturningz he replaced the tube immediately so I'm very happy with their service.
 
Glen, very nice pens indeed!!:thumb::thumb: I know exactly what you mean about pain killers and the shop not mixing. Also, extend a thanks to those in your family that have served our country and continued our freedoms!
Welcome to this family also!

Vaughn and everyone else, here is the page, scroll down and you will see what woodturningz.com has for sale on this type of pen. Kallenshein (sp?) is doing the lazer work. I have completed the rifle, pink ribbon and horseshoe pen kit.
Yep, Ryan, Beth or Fritz, doesn't matter who you talk with, they are top notch.

Duhhhhhh! Would make more sense if I had put the page address in the above paragraph! http://woodturningz.com/Mesa_Pen_Kits.aspx
 
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