Design Idea that has been running around in my head a while

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Rojo22

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Ok, most of you read the title and said, well there sure would be a lot of room in his head to run around in....LOL....

I started this pen out a few years back as a simple vine and dot pattern with a vine of veneer and some simple dowels as representations of leaves. I have always wanted to attempt this pen, but have always put it off till now. With the confidence to pour a PR pour from our own MICK, I took a one inch maple blank and cut out the vine and leaf pattern. I mixed and poured a green PR in the pattern and then added the layers of veneer on the opposing sides of the body of the pen, and tried to echo that in the cap. I then added the end segments to the pen body and cap. There are 15 pieces in the cap alone, and there are 9 peices in the body of the pen, not including the PR as a piece, for a total of 24 individual pieces in the pen. I have always wanted to try the Cambridge pen kit, and never had till this one....I have a bone to pick with the designer of the Cambridge, but that is another post.

I tried to get the theme of the Cambridge kit captured with the leaf and vine/grape accents. This is a pen I have entered into the Georgia Perry International Fair, in the woodturning division, so if you are in Georgia, you can see it at the fair. The finish is a CA finish. The wood is an insanely figured piece of Maple for the field, the veneers are maple and purpleheart, the end caps are also purpleheart, and the leaves and vines are a super secret mix of green PR.....

I would love to hear honest critiques of the work. I have thick skin and am looking for honest feedback, because I plan on doing a series of these, and your feedback will be considered when making others. I appreciate all comments, good and bad, and I have thick skin so dont worry about upsetting me. If you really have something bad to say, just PM me....LOL.....I made three of these "just in case" because of the Perry Fair deadline was sneaking up on me, so I have the other two and will have them for display at the Southeast Chapter Meeting Tomorrow...there will be a slight admission fee....lol....just kidding....
 

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mredburn

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Does the design of the leaves appear on both sides of the pen body? It looks great and I think it would be great to be able to have the ability to produce a pen with 2 non identical panels yet with a shared theme. the first thing I noticed after the vines was the detail of the veneers. Excellant design work and execution. MIke
 
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wood-of-1kind

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Overall I like it, but I would have "loved" even more if the vine(s) element would have extended (grown?) into your posting cap. Your idea has helped me to spawn an idea of my own that I will try down the road. Thank you for taking the time to post. : )
 

VisExp

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I would love to hear honest critiques of the work. I have thick skin and am looking for honest feedback, because I plan on doing a series of these, and your feedback will be considered when making others.

I like the pen and your craftsmanship is apparent. It's a great concept and I look forward to the next of the series

I would consider leaving out the veneers by the center band and having the vine continue through from the lower barrel into the upper barrel.

To my eye, the vine stopping at the center band is to abrupt. If it continued through the CB and actually stopped just shy of the veneers by the clip end it would look more natural and pleasing.

I would also assemble the pen so the pin stripe veneers lined up.
 

Rojo22

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Thanks all for the valuable input. A few of you have already mentioned things that went through my mind when I actually took this from paper to the pen itself.

I love the idea also of the continuing vine idea. The only thing that stopped me was the clip design on the older Cambridge pens. I love the black highlighted clips like you see in the picture. The newer Cambridge pen has the clip one solid color. I might try the continuing vine theme on one of the new ones, because the clip is "less busy" than the one I used. My personal preference is the older clip, because the gold, silver and black just scream classy to me. I think they messed up with the newer design by going with only the one color. If the newer designs had the older clips, I would really like that kit. The pen you see only has the vine on the body of the pen, because I felt like it would compete with the design on the clip. Thanks for the input on that one.

The veneers are lined up all the way through the pen. There are two "panels" of the same vine design on opposite sides of the body. 90 degrees to the vines there is a simple veneer pack seperating the panels. The cap has 4 veneer packs, all lined up with the veneer packs on the body. Since the cap does not have the vine pattern, the cap has two veneer packs that line up with the center line of the vines. The picture does not convey that very well, but if you hold the pen and look, the veneers run straight down the pen and match perfectly (DAMHIKT).

I am also intrigued by the opposite panel being a different panel than that of the opposite side. I have taken that one step further though (WARNING: CRAZY MAN PLANNING!), and have plans on paper with a six segment body, with THREE different panels, and THREE veneer panels seperating the three picture panels....It looks easy on paper...LOL.....Now the hard part is getting it on the lathe and getting a finished pen!

Again thanks for the comments and feedback!
 
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Nickfff

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Jan 24, 2008
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Robert,
Excellent job! I like the fact that you cut the vine out by hand vs using a laser (added complexity). Lots of steps to completion and I can only imagine the time involved. Keep it up!

Nick
 

broitblat

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I think it's a great looking pen. Nice concept and great execution. I agree that it would be interesting for the vine to continue to the cap, but it also looks good the way it is.

-Barry
 

Randy_

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"Design Idea that has been running around in my head a while"

Glad you were able to chase down that idea and get it embedded in a pen. Nice work. I agree with most who want to see the pattern continued onto the cap and disagree with the folks who think it is too busy.
 
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