Jim in Oakville
Member
Hi,
Yesterday I gave my first pen class of Building on the Basics at the Lee Valley store in Burlington Ontario. They sold out the class and had an extra on the waiting list so we were a class of seven students.
I was delighted that the class took the challenge of working hard all day (8hours) in turning two pens. One pen was to focus on the detail and quality they should pay attention to on turning and finishing a pen while the second pen was about creating their own unique pen designs.
For our first pen we worked on a capped El Grande with an acrylic pen body in the first half of the class. For all of the class they had never tried an acrylic before so it was a good opportunity to work with the students to show them how to get a well turned pen body out of a new material for them. Many of the students were novices with some who had some experience for more than a few years. I had to say from one student who had only ever turned one pen to the others with experience it was a positive class through out.
In the later part of the class we focused on making a custom pen not constrained by hardware, so I selected slim lines for the class and let them create their own designs. I was totally impressed by the out come of that exercise. All of the turners made excellent slim lines of one of kind, no centre bands and in some cases no clips. The materials for the second pen were stabilized maple burls, also new for all of the class.
The class used the Ablaron- Micromesh and polishing methods I like to use, it all worked out great.
In the last part of the class I used a pin chuck and turned a solid end Junior Gentlemen’s pen, it was on a Fanger pin chuck.
One of our own here on IAP was in the class (Dale, aka; Murphy), these are her two pens.
In the end the class was a full hard day, I learnt some new details myself about pen making and I enjoyed the students I had in my class. A totally positive experience.
Some other class shots..
Thanks to Lee Valley and Sylvester at the store for taking great care of our class with super support!
Yesterday I gave my first pen class of Building on the Basics at the Lee Valley store in Burlington Ontario. They sold out the class and had an extra on the waiting list so we were a class of seven students.
I was delighted that the class took the challenge of working hard all day (8hours) in turning two pens. One pen was to focus on the detail and quality they should pay attention to on turning and finishing a pen while the second pen was about creating their own unique pen designs.
For our first pen we worked on a capped El Grande with an acrylic pen body in the first half of the class. For all of the class they had never tried an acrylic before so it was a good opportunity to work with the students to show them how to get a well turned pen body out of a new material for them. Many of the students were novices with some who had some experience for more than a few years. I had to say from one student who had only ever turned one pen to the others with experience it was a positive class through out.
In the later part of the class we focused on making a custom pen not constrained by hardware, so I selected slim lines for the class and let them create their own designs. I was totally impressed by the out come of that exercise. All of the turners made excellent slim lines of one of kind, no centre bands and in some cases no clips. The materials for the second pen were stabilized maple burls, also new for all of the class.
The class used the Ablaron- Micromesh and polishing methods I like to use, it all worked out great.
In the last part of the class I used a pin chuck and turned a solid end Junior Gentlemen’s pen, it was on a Fanger pin chuck.
One of our own here on IAP was in the class (Dale, aka; Murphy), these are her two pens.
In the end the class was a full hard day, I learnt some new details myself about pen making and I enjoyed the students I had in my class. A totally positive experience.
Some other class shots..
Thanks to Lee Valley and Sylvester at the store for taking great care of our class with super support!
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