A Few Pens

[AHill]

It's been about 2 months since my knee replacement surgery, and now I have the stamina to stand up awhile and do some turning. I started with a few pens. The photos aren't the greatest. They were taken with my iPhone with a few edits for size.

First up is a Panache out of buckeye burl. I've not turned a Panache before. It's a lot larger than I would have imagined. Best advice I can give anyone wanting to turn a Panache is to start with a 1" square blank. This was 3/4" square and it's barely big enough for the larger diameter. I see this as better fit for a desk pen or for lady's purse. No clip to hang onto a shirt pocket.


Next up is an El Grande with a TruStone Azurite / Malachite blank.


And finally this trio of two Sedonas and a Navigator. All acrylic. I honestly can't remember the names of these blanks.

[chips ahoy]

Alan
Beautiful pens, like you I never remember the names of the acrylics. Love buckeye burl, I have made several Jr Gent fountain pens using it. They sold well.

Mel

[Steve K]

I don't tend to turn pens, but if I could do them like that, I would.

[pinky]

Those are very nice!

[Arlin Eastman]

Really nice kits and the selection of blanks is fantastic for each of them.

Well done buddy.

Did you get the kits from Craftsupply?

Arlin

[AHill]

Arlin, I got the Panache kits from Craft Supplies, the Sedona kits from WoodturningZ, and the Navigator from Woodcraft. The Navigator is very close to a Jr. Gents II from CSUSA.

The buckeye burl has 2 coats of General Finishes Arm-R-Seal, followed by buffing with the Beall system. The acrylics were sanded then micromesh to 12,000 followed by a plastic polish. It is important to do the same thing with acrylics as you should do with wood, which is after each grit, stop the lathe, then sand lengthwise to remove the circumferential scratches. I turn acrylics at around 2500 RPM using a very sharp roughing gouge to remove most of the material, then a back beveled scraper for fine shaping. I use a spindle gouge for final shaping on wood blanks. For burls, you gotta be very careful when you get to the edges. Even with stabilized wood blanks, I use some thin CA to soak into the edges near the bushings to reinforce the edge. The softer the burl, the more important it is to do that.

[dlgWoodWork]

Nice work. I really like the El Grande. And the blank on the first pen on left in bottom pic is awesome.

[AHill]

You really can't see it in the photo, but the one you mentioned has a really nice iridescent gray on the opposite side of the gold and black. The one on the right side has some iridescent green stripes on the opposite side of the clip.

Another tip I learned. I'm not a fan of rollerballs, because they don't seem to write as smoothly as ball points, they bleed through most papers, and they don't last very long. I found that Avant makes a Schmidt 9000 sized hybrid ink refill called Avant SilkScribe. They are one of the smoothest ball points I've used, they last a long time, lay down some really nice dark black ink, and best of all, you can get them at Staples. I get a year or more of use out of a SilkScribe refill. I prefer the medium 1.0 mm size.

dlgWoodWork said:

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Nice work. I really like the El Grande. And the blank on the first pen on left in bottom pic is awesome.

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[Woodshop]

all very nice