I bought a starter pack of the Big Ben EDC click pen kits from Penn State Industries and made a few pens. Thought they came out pretty nice, and they’re big and chonky and fit my large paws pretty well.
Turned all the wooden ones with just a skew. The LavaBright needs a carbide tool to avoid chipping.
The photos, in order are juniper with chrome and gold, granadillo with gunmetal and gold, white oak with black and gunmetal, and LavaBright Crush black and gold with black and chrome.
Great job Dave. I would suggest you find a pen qith the schmidt skm 88 click mechanism. I have read those last longer and are more durable. Havent had any issues out of those style click mechanism you made but the Schmidt does feel better when clicking
Keebs, these do have the Schmidt mechanism. Pretty much all the pen kits I buy take Parker refills (because the JetStream uni-ball pen refills I like are Parker-style) and have the Schmidt mechanism.
Yeah, Splint. There was a pretty knot in the juniper too, but I ended up turning it away, and all that remains is a dark spot I hid under the clip. But I’ve been saving offcuts from other projects and have about half a cubic-foot of ready-to-go pen blanks. When I rummage through there, I generally grab the pretty stuff, and then figure which end is better before trimming it to length.
I’ve also got a few dozen 2 inch and shorter pieces which are all going to get chopped into quarter to 3/8 inch long pieces and then glued up into multi-wood pen blanks one of these days. Just trying to decide if I want to do diagonal cuts or not before I start making blanks.
There’s also a cubic foot of blanks that need stabilizing. Guess I’m going to have to get my vacuum pot set up pretty soon too.
Very nice work Dave, great looking pens. Do you have to drill down the middle of the length? Seems like a nerve wrecking task. I followed the link you included for the LavaBright and the block is solid, reason I ask. Great work.
Thanks, Tom. I drill down the length using the lathe. Get a chuck with jaws like this:
That holds the pen blank centered. Then a chuck in the tailstock with the proper drill bit, and Bob’s your Uncle. Drilling right down the middle is pretty easy. What ends up being tricky now is when I get a piece like that juniper, where I want the hole off-center to get the prettier grain, I have to head to the post-drill and think hard about how to hold it right. So much more complicated…
The truth is, unless the pen blank is really close in thickness to the pens finished diameter, the hole doesn’t have to be perfectly centered. Once you turn it on the lathe, it’ll work itself out. That said, using pen jaws on a chuck (as shown by Dave) does make it pretty easy to keep everything centered and square.
Ryan/// ~sigh~ I blew up another bowl. Moke told me "I made the inside bigger than the outside".
Nice fat little pens Dave, some choice woods/material, but I agree with Tom, that Juniper is some special looking wood. It would be my choice for a desk set.
Thanks, guys! Pretty sure that’s some of the juniper I got from Sycamoray which he cut up near Taos, NM.
Petey, there are about a dozen different woods called granadillo, so make sure to look at what you’re getting closely. There’s some really pretty stuff, though.
