Patriot Pen and Pencil Holder

I made this to celebrate our 250 years as a country- The USA  !!! The plate and pen tubes are made from Sycamore. The pen and pencil are  the last things I made from Brazilian Rosewood and I got sick making them ( no more rosewood- Never).
I knew this was going to be a challenge because I did not want the pen tubes to protrude through plate but I needed to get them in the right place as the engraving was all done then. I used my 10" sine plate at 32 degrees to set up for the drilling  with a 11/16" and then a 1/2" Forstner bits. The tubes bottom out in the holes.

I posted a shot of the "quick and dirty" drill gage I made for that. Then once they were glued in, I needed to cut the bottoms off at 30 degrees to match the bottom of the plate for angle and plane! Another "quick and dirty" set up in the band saw did a fine job of that! The band saw angle plate came in real handy there!!

Cheers and Happy Birthday to the  USA !!............................Jim