Five More Pens (Sorry, I know this is boring), originally uploaded by rgdaniel.
Actually made 6 pens today, but one had a teeny tiny flaw that caused it to fail my stringent quality control. My wife seems happy to have it though.
This time we have (l-r) Paduak, Zebrawood (x2) and Pau Ferro (x2).
The Paduak and the first Zebrawood introduce the “satin nickel” finish, which I quite like. May get more of them… I only bought 10.
Five Pens for Karen, originally uploaded by rgdaniel.
Made these five “Designer” pens today, a new record! The trick is to not worry about the quality… that was a joke, they’re awesome… orders are piling up… Christmas is coming, hint hint…
From left to right, the woods are Pau Ferro, Lacewood, and Paduak, Paduak, Paduak. I’m LOVING the Pau Ferro, first time I’ve used this wood.
(click through to Flickr for larger sizes)
Having some fun with replacing the store-bought centre band with wood centre bands of contrasting material that I turn along with the pen.
The first one we saw in an earlier post, purpleheart with maple bits. The second is curly maple, the third is from a very nice piece of cherry burl, of which I have enough to make one more pen, I think.
The cherry wood was given to me by Larry Cluchey, a local turner from whom I recently had some instruction in turning. Thanks Larry!
This is (hopefully) the last of at least 7 design iterations in Sketchup for the TV stand I’ve been mulling over for several months now… Version 6 was actually marked final and the cutting had begun, when I realized that the shelves it included would not be necessary and would in fact unacceptably reduce the available space for components.
The main pieces were already cut based on version 6 of the plan, which had a full-thickness back, stopping short of the top and bottom (for ventilation). This would have involved a ridiculous amount of wood trim to cover exposed particle board, more than anywhere else on the project… It didn’t make sense to put all that effort into trimming out the least-visible part of the thing.
So here I went with 1/4-inch hardboard for the back, full-coverage, with ventilation holes and wire-access holes, top and bottom.
Exposed edges will all be trimmed out with solid walnut, with the top and bottom receiving a full inch-wide treatment, giving them the illusion of being thicker, and differentiating them from the upright pieces (sides and divider). The base will be mitered, all going well…
We’ll see if this plan holds through the whole build…
A very productive day at the office today! My Best Pen Ever (if I do say so) made of purpleheart with a maple finger-grip area and a maple centre band (replacing the “comes with” band). Including some nice little groove details on the maple bits… not sure I can bear to part with this one…
And then the scary bit – the oil lamp… my first turning of any real size, first time using the 4-jaw chuck… I slowed the lathe WAY down to slowest speed, so it wouldn’t all explode on me… even so, when those CORNERS come whipping across the gouge tool, you hold on and hope for the best, taking tiny tiny bits of wood off at a time… worked out okay though…
The design is based on either a very fat bud vase or a nuclear cooling tower…
My haul from a trip to the exotic wood store, which is actually called “Exotic Woods” ( www.exotic-woods.com )
I have no idea what many of these are like to work with, but this is how you find out. I was strangely drawn, disturbingly even, to the “She Oak”. But I think that transgendered trees could use our support and understanding…
Just finished these two pens: One is a standard slimline in zebrawood (with a very cool “eye” feature in the grain). The other is a first try at a so called European-style pen, made from paduak (pah-DOOK).
The European-style pen is a little trickier to make. It involves cutting a tenon under where the centre band is. Consequently, the centre band is actually on the lathe during the process, and as a result of THAT, I ended up first scratching the centre band, then finally sanding away the gold plating trying to “buff it out”.
So the paduak pen won’t be leaving the house, but live and learn, next one should be perfect!
This is a comfort grip pen I made from Zebrawood… I think I like these better than the standard slim line pens, but then I have big fat hands…
Had some trouble with my lathe, had to exchange it finally as it was out-of-true, but finally got a couple of pens done… They ain’t so much pretty, or in focus, but at least I kind of know more or less what I’m doing now…
