Or A tale of two pens.
I set out to build a pen for submission in the freestyle pen contest. I finalized the design and built the blanks, took a close look at them and scrapped them.
I started with a basic scallop design, Koa and maple.
Then I routed across them like so with a 90 degree router bit.
Then I ran some ebony through the router on end and glued them on.
then I routed off the ebony parallel to the maple. Routed koa on end and glued it to the ebony. All with the 90 degree bit. So it looked like this when turned down.
The picture of the upper cap, the body of the pen, and the nose cone
However what you cant see is that there is tear out on the maple that did not get turned away, it was too deep. You must realize that I had to really bear down on the math to get the Maple to meet at the point that the ebony tuns flat. If it was turned down to far or not enough and the maple wont match, it will be to small or to large. The next problem was the black was to thick for what I wanted in the design. The nose cone was also flawed where it was turned down to far and the black had scalloped from being cut away. And I didn't like the bland pattern of having the scallops on the same sides.
So I trashed it and started over
This time I had an "AHA" moment. I don't need to scallop the blanks to get the effect I wanted. So I did my layout and drilled the blank for different sized holes to correlate with the size of the maple scallop I wanted.
Much simpler and easier to control. I then turned a maple dowel to fit each hole. Rotating each hole 90 degrees.
I then cut the blanks through the middle of the maple dowel, then I clamped them in my mill and using the 90 degree router bit i milled the angles cleaner. Milled the ebony and glued it on, milled it to match the maple and then fitted the koa to the ebony.
Threw some silver parts on the ends, a silver clip with an ebony inlay in the top, made a simple koa, ebony, maple, plug for the cap finial and a piece of koa for the lower body finial. It is post-able but I find it overly long when it is.
Here is what was to have been my submission for the freestyle but I ran out of time. Given one more day I would have made it. "Que Sera Sera"
As always I have room for improvement. Your comments and questions are welcome. I will almost certainly make the rejects into one of my all wooden pens just to finish it. No sense in wasting it.
thanks
I set out to build a pen for submission in the freestyle pen contest. I finalized the design and built the blanks, took a close look at them and scrapped them.
I started with a basic scallop design, Koa and maple.
Then I routed across them like so with a 90 degree router bit.
Then I ran some ebony through the router on end and glued them on.
then I routed off the ebony parallel to the maple. Routed koa on end and glued it to the ebony. All with the 90 degree bit. So it looked like this when turned down.
The picture of the upper cap, the body of the pen, and the nose cone
However what you cant see is that there is tear out on the maple that did not get turned away, it was too deep. You must realize that I had to really bear down on the math to get the Maple to meet at the point that the ebony tuns flat. If it was turned down to far or not enough and the maple wont match, it will be to small or to large. The next problem was the black was to thick for what I wanted in the design. The nose cone was also flawed where it was turned down to far and the black had scalloped from being cut away. And I didn't like the bland pattern of having the scallops on the same sides.
So I trashed it and started over
This time I had an "AHA" moment. I don't need to scallop the blanks to get the effect I wanted. So I did my layout and drilled the blank for different sized holes to correlate with the size of the maple scallop I wanted.
Much simpler and easier to control. I then turned a maple dowel to fit each hole. Rotating each hole 90 degrees.
I then cut the blanks through the middle of the maple dowel, then I clamped them in my mill and using the 90 degree router bit i milled the angles cleaner. Milled the ebony and glued it on, milled it to match the maple and then fitted the koa to the ebony.
Threw some silver parts on the ends, a silver clip with an ebony inlay in the top, made a simple koa, ebony, maple, plug for the cap finial and a piece of koa for the lower body finial. It is post-able but I find it overly long when it is.
Here is what was to have been my submission for the freestyle but I ran out of time. Given one more day I would have made it. "Que Sera Sera"
As always I have room for improvement. Your comments and questions are welcome. I will almost certainly make the rejects into one of my all wooden pens just to finish it. No sense in wasting it.
thanks
that pen is awesome. I love it. That is what I call creativity. Incrediable job.
