What Can you Make with a Pen Blank-besides pens?

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I make beer bottle openers with 3/4" to 1" square blanks. Quick, easy, and fun to make - and nice to have on hand to give to people. I buy the cheap paint can openers from Home Depot for something like $0.49 and cut the prying end off, leaving at least an inch left off the bottle opener end. Drill a 1/4" hole in one end of the blank. Turn it, sand it, finish with a friction polish, then epoxy in the bottle opener portion. I've given quite a few of these away and they're a big hit. Depending on what blanks you use or where you source your wood, the cost to make one of these is under $1 - though more if you use a nice blank. I've attached a picture of one of the ones I've made.
 

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I have made handles for crochet hooks and the like. Comes in handy for some one who can't get ahold of the hooks any more because of arthritis and other injuries. Fay
 
I've made some stopper blanks by gluing 2 pen blanks together then cutting them in half & gluing the two halves together. You can make some interesting grain & color combos this way.

I also make key chains, ornament, seam rippers & letter openers from pen blanks.
 
Yesterday I made clamps for the Weaver (the one I live with) to use with backstrap weaving out of plain walnut pen blanks that have been lying about. 5 clamps out of 10 each 5 inch pen blanks.
 
I use pen blanks for making seam rippers, sewing stiletto's, safety pin helpers, key rings, light pulls, coffee scoops, razor handles and stands and the list goes on. The cutoffs become magnets or get glued together to make a new blank.

DblRipr_PurpleYellow.jpg This is a double ended seam ripper. Based on the school colors for Tennessee Tech in Cookeville. One end is yellow jacket, the other is Purple Amethyst and the middle is Norse Pride. All 3 pcs are cutoffs from other projects.



safetyPinHelper_WALNUT.jpg This is a Safety Pin Helper used by quilters when putting the tops, bottoms and filling of the quilt together. It takes several dozen pins and this protects their fingers from wearing out closing all those safety pins. Walnut and brass. The grooves in the brass rod are done on the lathe.
 
Here is a small vase I made. I took a 3/4 x 3/4 x 6" blanks and glued them into a block. I faced one end, put it on a glue block and turned it down to the shape here. Then I carved small legs for it, glued them in, and took this pic.

Finished size was 8" tall by 7.5" diameter...just before it fell on the floor and shattered.

IMG_20141010_182550621_HDR.jpg
 
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Well, appart from all the "common" things that most people use wood pen blanks for, and some other examples shown here such as that magnificent box the cutting board and the vase, I have had people getting pen blanks from me to make chest tables, all sizes of table tops, I had one person that covered a full wall on his house with pen blanks glued to large but manageable sizes, like a puzzle effect, it looked stunning after the blanks on the panels being sanded and finished and then attached together on the wall.

Another person wanted to make a parquetry floor with pen blanks, I never saw it finished but, I supplied him with hundreds and hundreds of cheap blanks...!

I believe, there will be many other uses for pen blanks...!

Cheers
George
 
Ceiling fan and light pulls, wooden beads and pendants. I made mandrels for doing all 3. The beads can be plain or fancied up with wood burning or whatever. The pendant are usually tear drop shaped, drilled through the center with a wire bail coming out of the top of it.

One of the ceiling fan pulls that is not finished. Sorry no pic of the pendants or beads.

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