From Red Acetate Pen

A pen press can help oreint the parts so they press together squarely, ensuring all interfaces are seamless. Here, the point is pressed into the lower blank.

From Red Acetate Pen

The most important step of the whole process happens here. The transmission advances the ball of the pen for writing, and retracts it for storage. Seating it too deeply will not allow the pen to retract. To remove a transmission, it often must be destroyed. Before pressing the transmission into place, wrap some tape around it to it does not seat too deeply.

From Red Acetate Pen

From Red Acetate Pen

The finished product:

From Red Acetate Pen

From Red Acetate Pen

To ensure a near perfect surface, it’s critically important to move through the grits of abrasive without missing any grits. Be certain that all the scratches from the previous grit have been removed before moving on, and wipe the pen after each grit to remove loose sanding particles. Sanding through the courser grits can be considered a final, fine shaping process, and it is for this reason that we left the small additional amount of diameter near the bushings. You will waste off this diameter during the sanding process.

From Red Acetate Pen

I generally sand without water, using cloth backed sandpaper until galling appears. Galling will show as small dark streaks perpendicular to the axis of rotation. These streaks are signs of melting, and indicate that a lubricant must be used to remove the swarf. Time to switch to a wet abrasive. In this case, it’s P600 grit.

From Red Acetate Pen

Wet sanding has an additional advantage. It shows the swarf (cuttings) as a coloured paste, or as on finer grits, as a dull film on the surface of the water. That’s a good indication that it’s time to move to the next finer grit.

From Red Acetate Pen

Moving through the grits systematically will start to bring up the shine in your workpice.

From Red Acetate Pen

With acetate pens, and other hard surface products – natural or synthetic, you can sand all the way to 12000 grit, but with softer materials, one encounters diminishing returns. Here, the last sanding step is performed 12000 grit.

From Red Acetate Pen

After sanding, I give acetate pens a high gloss finish by polishing with an automotive product called “Mirror Glaze”. It’s a non-abrasive solvent based product that yields astonishing results.

From Red Acetate Pen

The blanks can now be removed from the mandrel for assembly, but first, be certain to clean the ends. Some grit from the sanding process can get caught at the interface between the blanks and the bushings. Here are the finished blanks, ready for assembly.

From Red Acetate Pen

Next entry, we’ll assemble the pen, and pass it on to the recipient.

From Red Acetate Pen

Once the faces are square, they will sit tighly to the bushings that determine the diameter at the end of each blank. Square faces ensure that the fitting will press in tight, and seat evenly at the faces. This is critical in showing off a good fit and finish on the final product. On small pieces of work it is IMPOSSIBLE to hide flaws.

Now the blanks are aligned with respect to grain, and placed on the mandrel with the bushings. Follow the instructions carefully to ensure the bushings go onto the mandrel in the right order relative to the length of the blanks. Some of the bushings can vary by less that 10 thou.

From Red Acetate Pen

Initial turning is done at around 2000 RPM, with a 1” roughing gouge. Some folks will say that you need a dedicated set of minature tools for turning pens. This is not the case. Good tool postion, and sharp tools will get the job done. Besindes, in more than 10 years of tunring, I’ve yet to see a quality set of minature tools. With acetate, you definately want a razors edge on your tools or the blank will melt and gall.

From Red Acetate Pen

Once the blank is round, move to a sharp detail gouge. I prefer a fingernail profile, but that’s personal preference. This is where the inital shape is applied. Think smooth, flowing curves.

From Red Acetate Pen

I perform the final smoothing and small changes in shape with a skew. Most turners are terrified of the skew because catches can be cataclysmic and violent. Practicing on smaller diameter work is a great way to refine your skills. I’ve increased the speed on the lathe to about 2500RPM here. The skew helps me smooth out the ridges left by the gouge since it cuts by “following the contour” behind itself.

From Red Acetate Pen

This is the shape I’ve ended up with.

From Red Acetate Pen

It is very important to leave a bit of extra diameter near the bushings. If you don’t you will not have enough material to sand and polish. The trick is knowing how much. I do it by feel, by leaving the smallest ridge that will still catch my fingernail. I’d guess it 15 to 20 thou. In softer materials, I’d leave more, in harder materials, less might be fine.

From Red Acetate Pen

Next time, we’ll sand and polish the pen. Until then… write on.

I don’t turn many pens. Usually when I do, it’s for a specific reason or an special someone, so I don’t batch them out like a lot of guys do. Not that there is anything wrong with that, because if you’re trying to generate a profit, that’s the only way to go. I prefer however to spend time with one project for someone amazing and work towards making the pen emulate the individual.

That process starts with selecting the hardware. Lee Valley has a great selection kits to choose from as do several other vendors. But since there’s a Lee Valley 5 minutes from my home, that’s where I get my kits. Kits should be chosen for their fit with the blank, and the individual. Most women prefer slim pens, while current style indicates men are choosing bolder, heavier cigar shaped writing instruments. Pay careful attention to the colour of the kit. Cooler titamium, nickle, and chrome finishes completement darker woods and acetates, while gold and brass bring out the warmer tones of natural materials, and can complement brighter colours in acetate. For the purpose of this blog, I will be using the LV StreamLine kit. It’s a very basic and adaptable kit that, with some modification can accept pen designs from mild to wild.

Start by selecting a material based on colour, intended use (i.e. don’t choose a soft wood for an everyday use pen), and if you’re making it for a special person… spend some time considering them too. Align the blank with the ferruls in your kit and mark the blank for cutting. Mark where each cut will be, and mark a line on one face, parallel to an edge. This line will be used to reorient the blank on the lathe to ensure that the grain remains matched on the finished product.

From Red Acetate Pen

Using a jig or a pen vise, you will need to drill out the centre of the blank to accept the ferrules. For larger diameter pens you will need to be careful to stay in the exact centre to preserve as much diameter as possible. For slimmer pens, it’s less critical. Usually, the apprpriate size brad point drill bit will be supplied with the kit, as an option. If you’re trying a new kit, make sure you buy the right drill size at the same time. I glue the ferrules in with epoxy, but cyanoacrylate (super) glues work well too. Be sure to sand any oxidation off of the brass ferrules before gluing. This provides a clean bonding surface, and increases the surface area for the bond as well.

From Red Acetate Pen

Be certain that the ferrules are held back from the ends of the blanks. This will give adequate material for squaring the blank to the cetreline of the ferrules in the next set, without shortening the over pen length. Usually, this is good place to stop for me. I set the blanks aside for the night to let the epoy achieve maximum strength.

In the next entry, I’ll detail the turning, sanding, and polishing steps.

The other night I went down to the shop to get some work done, and realized that I needed to do some cleanup. I spent a bunch of time getting tools put away, sharpened, and tuned. After reading this review to my bandsaw, I decided to make a modification to the saw that I had wanted to do for some time now. I removed a baffle between the lower wheel and the vaccum port. This increased the dust collection efficiency by 40%-50%. I also cleaned the table, checked it for square to the blade, and adjusted all the guides. It’s ready to rip the boards for the top now.

I’ve moved machines for optimal workflow, and tried to consiider where rough lumber, oversize pieces, and final pieces will be stacked and how they will be labelled. I removed all the tripping hazards scatted about the garage such as tricycles, hockey sticks, and lacross balls, left lovingly by my sons. While this might not be the most exciting post you see on theis blog, I think it’s essential, at least for me, to do some planning on how one’s shop is going to work for them on a big project. It also serves as a “hard reset” and a point of focus for the start of the build.

Hopefully my next post will be more interesting.

I’ve got a job that regularly puts me into 30 hours of weekly overtime I can’t claim back (sore point), a young family consisting of my lovely wife and two boys aged 6 and 3, and I am an avid hunter and fisherman. Did I mention I like to golf too? So finding time is a challenge for a big project, but I’ll fit it in. This might take me a year of Sundays, or maybe I can get it done in 3 months, I’m not sure. But stick with me and follow along as I share my splinters, boast of brilliance, and curse catastrophe. I’ll try to illustrate key points and share moments where I’ve learned lessons, or made and overcome mistakes.

So let’s get on with it already!

On February 22nd, the project began in earnest when I took delivery of more than 300 board feet (I only need about half of this amount for the bench) of old growth Douglas Fir. It was all 8” wide, and mostly 8/4 stock. This log was culled from a tree removed from private property in Victoria BC Canada. The irony is that it was destined for firewood before I tagged it for the bench!

From Bench Build

Doulas Fir delivered to my doorstep.

The wood is lovely, tight grained, and nearly dry enough to work. I’ll stack and sticker it in my shop and let it acclimate for a week or two and then I’ll get down to cutting to rough size, starting with the benchtop components.

!

From Bench Build

(Stacked in the shop.)!

Here are a couple more shots of the wood showing its range of colour, and the HUGENESS of it’s girth.

From Bench Build

Douglas Fir ranges in colour from a light tan, similar to ash, to a reddish hue.

From Bench Build

Mostly 8/4 stock, with three 4/4 planks, all of this wood is quartersawn – or very close to it.

I hope you will check back often to see how this project unfolds. It is one of my largest builds to date, and I am certain I will feel a great sense of accomplishment once it is complete… if not relief.

Manini.